As Oil Prices Rise …

Watching the evening news on ABC, I was particularly struck by the story on rising oil prices. Democrats are concerned that high gas prices will not be good for the candidacy of Barack Obama. I was interested in learning that speculators seem to be driving up the price of oil. Alas, there is little the president can do about gas prices, and speculation is one of the many things over which he has virtually no control.

The Republican candidates are already blaming Obama for gas prices because, of course, they can. Gingrich supposedly has a plan to deliver $2.50/gal. gasoline. It amounts to, as the president pointed out, drill, drill, and keep drilling. Even if you think this is a good idea, it must be pointed out that it won’t deliver $2.50 gas any time soon.

In fact, Republicans are criticizing Obama both for high gas prices and for being soft on Iran. This is frustrating for the president, since putting pressure on Iran is going to increase gas prices. Europe is already putting the squeeze on Iran, and the inevitable result will be higher gas prices for everyone.

A New Player in Town

There is a new site on the World Wide Web. The domain yestothecovenant.org was registered February 16, 2012, and there is now a Web site at the address http://yestothecovenant.org titled “Yes to the Covenant.” It carries the tag line “Serious about uniting Anglicans worldwide.” Clearly, Yes to the Covenant is intended counter (and, to a large extent, mirror) the No Anglican Covenant site.

Let me begin by welcoming the new site and its backers to the discussion of whether the proposed Anglican Covenant is a good or a bad thing for worldwide Anglicanism. I believe that a promising future for the Anglican Communion is only possible through real engagement in open and frank discussion. It is my hope that Yes to the Covenant will contribute to that conversation. There has, after all, been all too much talk of the Covenant’s being “the only way forward;” that, having seen the Covenant this far to implementation, it is somehow disingenuous to back out; and that we cannot discomfort or embarrass the Archbishop of Canterbury by subverting the program he has so arduously championed.

For now, at least, Yes to the Covenant seems to be strictly an English affair. That said, the effort to advance the Covenant has, for some time in the past and for some time in the future, been fought primarily within the Church of England. In contrast, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, which was organized near the end of 2010, has been an international effort from the beginning.

According to the new site’s Who are we? page, the people behind the site are Prudence Dailey, a lay member of the General Synod from Oxford, and the Rev. David Harris, who is Vicar of St. Giles, Reading, a parish in the Diocese of Oxford. Taking a page from the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, Yes to the Covenant, already has its first Patron, the Rt. Rev. John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford.

The new site is attractive, but, perhaps not surprisingly, a bit thin on content. What content there is is disappointing. For example, on the page titled “Why we need a Covenant,” we find this:

Unlike some other Churches, the global Anglican Communion does not have any central authority structure. It is, nevertheless, considered to be a worldwide Church with, for example, interchangeability of Orders between the various Provinces.

No! The Anglican Communion is not considered a church, no matter how many times Rowan Williams uses the phrase “Anglican Church.” In fact, many of us who value the Communion do so in part because it is not a church, but a communion (or fellowship) of autonomous churches. Yes to the Covenant, however, laments that Anglicanism is not “a single global entity.”

Another page on the site, titled “Why support the Covenant?” repeats all the lame arguments the No Anglican Covenant Coalition has been fighting against since its inception:

• [B]ecause its [sic] the only game in town. We are again told that there is no alternative. This is complete nonsense
• We can’t turn our backs now. Apparently, if one runs toward the edge of a cliff, it is unfair to the cliff to think better of one’s path of destruction. The Covenant never was a good idea, and more and more people are beginning to realize that. The message of Yes to the Covenant, however, is don’t worry your pretty little head about the Covenant.
• Finally, there is this: not quite don’t hurt the Archbishop of Canterbury’s feelings, but certainly—U.K. readers may not get this reference—Father Knows Best:

We don’t have to do what the Archbishop of Canterbury tells us, but we do have to accept that his priority is trying to hold the Communion together, and that he has a global view that most of us lack. We should therefore at least listen to him.

Since Rowan Williams know better than any of us, why don’t we simply declare him the Anglican Pope! The Why Support the Covenant? page, alas, seems a parody of what a pro-Covenant site should look like. The Onion would be proud to be its author.

The most sustained argument on the new site is on the FAQ page. I’ll spare my readers a full rebuttal to this little essay, but I cannot let this sentence go unremarked upon: “It would be a mistake not to give the Covenant a chance, just because it can’t solve all our problems.” I would argue not only that the Covenant will not solve all our problems, but also that it will create new ones. It will virtually guarantee the split of the Communion into two tiers, which, I predict, will effectively become two communions. Perhaps it would be best just to split up now and be done with it.

Finally, Yes to the Covenant offers More online resources. There aren’t many resources here. There are links to the Covenant text and to the January 10, 2012, letter from Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba. There are also three links to the Fulcrum Web site, suggesting perhaps that Fulcrum is behind Yes to the Covenant.

The Yes to the Covenant folks claim to be “[s]erious about uniting Anglicans worldwide.” I will take them at their word but point out that serious is not enough.

Additional Thoughts on an Internal Episcopal Candidate for Pittsburgh

In an earlier post, I indicated that a priest from within the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has been nominated for bishop by petition, and I argued that, without getting into personalities, I did not think that electing a priest from within the diocese would be a good thing.

Although bishops of The Episcopal Church are most usually elected from outside the diocese, this is not always the case. I’m sure that there are people who would readily point out that Gene Robinson was Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of New Hampshire when he was elected bishop of that diocese. That Robinson was elected is a strong indication that he was well liked and appreciated in his own diocese.

The point I want to make is that, although there may be some drawbacks to electing a priest from within a diocese, there can be overriding reasons for doing so. I also want to argue that, for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh electing a bishop in 2012, the case against an internal candidate is simply too compelling to be dismissed. To support this assertion, I want to make one additional argument that crystallized in my mind only after I wrote “Pittsburghers Nominate Episcopal Candidate by Petition.”

Under former bishop Bob Duncan, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh was slowly but systematically isolated from the wider Episcopal Church, and The Episcopal Church came to be represented as an evil influence to avoid. I won’t attempt to provide a definitive accounting of everything our now-deposed bishop did in this regard, but a short list should act as a reminder to people who have been following diocesan affairs for the past decade. My list includes actions taken directly by Duncan, as well as those passed by the diocesan convention with his vigorous support:

• Resolution One, passed in 2002, warned members of the 2003 General Convention of actions the diocese could not accept if passed.
•  Parishes were allowed to designate the part of their assessments that had previously gone to The Episcopal Church to be diverted to other charities. Eventually, the diocese refused to forward any money to The Episcopal Church.
• The accession clause of the diocesan constitution was changed to give the diocese final say about what it would and would not do.
• Clergy conferences were held on days when the Province III Synod met, so that representatives from the diocese could not attend.
• Eventually, the diocese claimed to have withdrawn from Province III.
• Trinity School for Ministry became virtually the only seminary from which diocesan priests were drawn.
• Speakers at diocesan events such as clergy conferences and convention dinners were mostly drawn from outside The Episcopal Church and were critics of The Episcopal Church.
• When attending House of Bishops meetings, Duncan did not lodge in the same facilities as most other bishops and usually left early after business of special interest to him had been discussed.
• Duncan accepted David Moyer into the diocese after Moyer had been deposed by the Bishop of Pennsylvania.
• Duncan was an important figure in the development of the Anglican Communion Network, a precursor of the Anglican Church in North America.
• Duncan helped create the Anglican Relief and Development Fund, which directly competed with Episcopal Relief and Development.

Ultimately, of course, Duncan tried to remove the entire diocese from The Episcopal Church, and his supporters still hold property that should be under the control of Episcopalians.

Sad to say, even though The Episcopal Church came eventually to the aid of Pittsburgh Episcopalians who reached out to it, that aid, at least before the actual schism of October 2008, was less substantial than one might have hoped. Had it not been for the work of Calvary Church and Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh within the diocese, Pittsburgh would not be preparing to elect its next bishop two months from now.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh has too long been isolated from the wider church. Electing a bishop from within the diocese, however well intentioned, can only feed the insularity that so often seems to characterize Southwestern Pennsylvania generally. Instead, we need to reach out to the wider church for a bishop, bringing in new blood and new ideas from outside the Pittsburgh cocoon. We need to re-connect to the general church in as many ways as possible.

Who knows? With the right leadership, Pittsburgh, taking lessons from its long night of isolation and episcopal manipulation, might even become a leading diocese of The Episcopal Church.

Trinity Cathedral Shows Its Colors

I have lately been singing in the Trinity Cathedral choir, taking a sabbatical from my own parish choir to help out at the diocesan cathedral, from which many people (including choir singers) left after the Chapter declared the cathedral to be that of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and no longer that of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

My post “Trinity Cathedral Casts Its Lot with TEC” included a photograph of the sign on the fence in front of the church that declared Trinity to be the cathedral of both dioceses. That picture was from December, and I have been wondering how long it would take to remove the words “The Anglican Church in North America.” I was sorely tempted to take my roll of duct tape to church one Sunday, but, in the end, I decided that discretion was called for.

I was delighted this morning, however, when, walking along Sixth Avenue, I was greeted by a new sign. Its duplicate, I later discovered, is visible at the back of the building along Oliver Avenue as well. The signs are, one might say, proudly Episcopalian.

New Sign at Rear of Trinity Cathedral
(Click for larger view)

Thought for 2/18/2012—Take 2

Raping thousands of children is not enough for the Catholic Church; now bishops want to screw women employees as well.

Thought for 2/18/2012—Take 1

Paying for birth control pills seems a small price to pay for raping thousands of children.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

As I’m sure many readers know, dioceses of the Church of England—there are 44 of them—are voting on the Anglican Covenant. Only if a majority of the dioceses vote in favor of the pact will the question of its adoption by the Church of England return to the General Synod for final approval. If a majority of dioceses vote against the Covenant, one would expect that the Covenant will have effectively been rejected by the Mother Church of worldwide Anglicanism. One always has to worry, however, whether Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams might devise some ad hoc contrivance to rescue his beloved Covenant from ignominious rejection by his own church.

Going into this weekend, the diocesan vote was 5 dioceses for Covenant adoption (Lichfield, Durham, Europe, Bristol, and Canterbury) and 6 dioceses against (Truro, Birmingham, Wakefield, St. Edmundsbury & Ipswich, Derby, and Gloucester). The vote is no longer so close.

This weekend, the dioceses of Leicester, Portsmouth, Rochester, and Salisbury and  all voted against the Covenant. This makes the current vote of dioceses 5 for the Covenant and 10 against!

More information , including actual vote totals, will eventually appear on the No Anglican Covenant Coalition’s blog and Web site.

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

 

Unhelpful

I was recently browsing the redesigned Episcopal Church Web site and decided to check if the information about my own parish was up-to-date. The church’s home page contains a link at the top right labeled FIND A CHURCH. Clicking on the link takes the visitor to a page where a ZIP Code can be entered. I put in the ZIP Code of St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon (15228), clicked the GO button, and was taken to a page that includes what you can see in the image below:

Pittsburgh Episcopalians should immediate recognize a problem here. All parishes listed were Episcopal parishes four years ago, and, arguably they still are. Unfortunately, many of the buildings are currently occupied by Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) congregations. They are, as we usually say in Pittsburgh, “Duncan churches.” In particular, Church of the Advent and Church of the Atonement (among many others) listed above are Duncan churches in the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. The Episcopal Church Web site is directing visitors to churches of a rival denomination!

The church finder function on the ACNA Web site is considerably more up-to-date. It is reached from a link at the right of the home page, which takes the visitor here. As on the Episcopal Church site, one can enter a ZIP Code and a search radius. The results corresponding to the search I did on the Episcopal Church site are shown, in part, below:

St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, was not listed. In fact, the only parish listed erroneously was Trinity Cathedral, which, until December, had been acting both as an Episcopal Church and ACNA cathedral. Now, of course, it is strictly an Episcopal Church operation. (See “Trinity Cathedral Casts Its Lot with TEC.”) ACNA has not yet gotten around to making the change on its parish finder.

When I discovered the problem with the Episcopal Church Web site, I thought of contacting the Episcopal Church Center myself. Considering the matter further, however, I decided that the request for a change to the list of Pittsburgh parishes ought to come from the Episcopal diocese itself. I therefore contacted my friend Joan Gundersen, who has been responsible, since the departure of the Duncan faction in 2008, for keeping The Episcopal Church straight on who is or is not an Episcopal priest or deacon in the diocese, as well as which churches are occupied by Episcopal congregations and which are occupied by ACNA congregations. At least as far as parishes are concerned, Joan expressed despair of ever getting the Church Center to get things right.

I don’t know if the church finder function on the Episcopal Church Web site handled the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh properly before the latest redesign was implemented or not. Either the transition was done poorly, or it was executed using erroneous data from the start. I can only hope that this post will help shame the Episcopal Church powers that be into getting the Web site right and ceasing to send Episcopalians to ACNA churches.

By the way, the information for St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, is correct on the Episcopal Church Web site.

Update, 2/23/2012: Gary Gaertner read the above post and decided to encourage the communications folks at the Episcopal Church Center to eliminate ACNA churches from the parish finder. This required several e-mail exchanges, but, I am happy to report, he seems to have been successful in getting ACNA churches removed. Of course, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh believes that parishes that are controlled by ACNA are properly Episcopal Church parishes, but they are, one might say, under ACNA occupation. It is silly to send someone looking for an Episcopal Church parish to such a church.

Pittsburghers Nominate Episcopal Candidate by Petition

In addition to the four candidates to become the next Bishop of Pittsburgh announced a few weeks ago by the Standing Committee—see “Pittsburgh Episcopal Candidates Announced”—a petition has been received nominating a local priest. Assuming this person passes the standard background check, the subject of the petition will become the fifth nominee in the April election. The name of the petition nominee has not been announced.

This is, I suggest, an unfortunate development, and I will try to explain why.

To begin with, the petition candidate was certainly suggested to the Nomination Committee, which did not see fit to advance the candidate. Although I personally believe that no one from within the Diocese of Pittsburgh should be a candidate to become the next bishop—see below—I have reason to believe that the Nomination Committee did not have such a blanket prejudice against internal candidates. One has to wonder why this person was removed from the candidate pool.

Divisions predating the 2008 split in the diocese persist. To be sure, there is a liberal-conservative divide, but there is also a slightly different divide between those who recognized Bob Duncan’s schismatic designs early on and actively opposed them (mostly moderate to liberal priests), on one hand, and the late-comers to the stay-in-The-Episcopal-Church party (mostly moderate to conservative priests), on the other. I suspect that a priest in neither group would be warmly welcomed as bishop by the other group.

Surely, some will argue that a candidate from the diocese knows the diocese well and can, therefore, hit the ground running, as it were. The reality, however, is that any internal candidate comes with a good deal of baggage—the priest will not be seen as an objective observer and will, in fact, come with prejudices that are not readily put aside. A candidate with no previous connection to the diocese can view the diocese without emotions born of  recent conflicts.

It is clear that the Nomination Committee sought candidates with a strong background as reconcilers. The recent history of the Diocese of Pittsburgh is largely one of partisan conflict, however, not of reconciliation, so it is difficult to imagine an internal candidate being able effectively to build a strong community, perhaps the biggest challenge for the next bishop. Even Across the Aisle—see my September 20, 2008, post here—was more a marriage of convenience than a true unification of longtime and recent opponents of Robert Duncan.

Then there is the matter of the overall résumés of the four current candidates. I suspect that the résumé of the priest being nominated by petition does not compare favorably with those of the current candidates in terms of education, variety of experience (particularly in different dioceses), and relevant accomplishments.

Because the petition candidate was, in some sense, rejected by the Nomination Committee, the petition itself is a kind of rebuke to the committee. I believe that the committee was balanced and conscientious, however, and the petition itself is a blow to diocesan unity and collegial trust. The nomination process was carefully designed to avoid the kind of ambush represented by Duncan’s nomination from the floor in the last Pittsburgh episcopal election, but the addition of a petition candidate nonetheless cannot but bring to mind that unhappy event. This is not helpful.

Any internal candidate is likely to garner a number of votes in the early rounds of balloting simply by virtue of being a favorite son (or daughter). This could distort the election and, potentially, eliminate one of the other four candidates who might well be the best choice for our next bishop.

Aside from any strengths or weaknesses of the person being nominated by petition, I believe the foregoing considerations militate against this priest’s candidacy. I therefore urge the candidate, for the sake of the diocese, to withdraw from the field.

Update, 2/20/2012: Today, I wrote another post on the matter of an internal candidate for bishop. I invite you to read “Additional Thoughts on an Internal Episcopal Candidate for Pittsburgh.”
 

Pearl of Wisdom for 2/13/2012

Paul Krugman’s column in today’s New York Times includes this distressing observation:

How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? …

My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.

Obama and the Contraceptive Mandate

It was with some trepidation that I awaited yesterday’s announcement from President Obama concerning the modification of his plan to require religious institutions to provide free contraception to employees covered by medical plans. I had been pleased by the decision to require religious institutions other than actual churches to provide such a benefit. It seemed to be a sign that Obama might finally be staking out a position he actually believed in, rather than announcing a compromise policy and compromising with his opponents from there. Even so, the exception for churches had not been a welcome exception.

The revised policy, which relieves church-related institutions from providing contraception but makes it mandatory for their insurance companies to provide the benefit free to those desiring it, is a clever fig leaf that provides cover for all parties. Whether it will quell charges that the president is eroding religious freedom remains to be seen. Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan said, “Today’s decision to revise how individuals obtain services that are morally objectionable to religious entities and people of faith is a first step in the right direction.” I suspect that the archbishop will be seeking a second, third, and fourth step as well, however.

It remains to be seen how the president’s plan works out in particular cases. What if the religious employer is self-insured? What if the insurer is itself a church-run organization? There are other issues that may prove problematic as well.

In other words, the controversy is far from over, but this seems a good time to offer a few observations on the controversy so far.

Telling Churches What To Do

Conservatives claim to see a systematic attack on religion by the federal government; every regulation that affects religious institutions is seen as an assault on religious freedom. This, of course, is part of a cynical political strategy, not the product of any objective reality. Churches and church-related institutions must obey innumerable regulations, and they largely do so without complaint. (Many Catholic institutions are even now offering contraception in employee health plans.) In the cases in question, however, Roman Catholic bishops have made the argument that their church was being required to pay for something it considers sinful, and this was said to be an innovation.

I have a hard time keeping up with everything the Pope thinks is sinful, but, for argument’s sake, let’s assume this the innovation assertion is true as far as the federal government is concerned. (Apparently, eight states require even churches to cover contraceptives for employees, so the innovation, if it is that, is only at the federal level.) Whereas the government does make certain accommodations for religious beliefs—Quakers are allowed to be conscientious objectors, for example—it is not clear that this is required by the Constitution, the free exercise clause notwithstanding. In any case, the need to accommodate religion is certainly not absolute. If a Jewish group wished to retain the right to stone miscreants for Old Testament infractions, does anyone really think the Constitution would demand that this be allowed?

An editorial in today’s New York Times put it this way:

Nonetheless, it was dismaying to see the president lend any credence to the misbegotten notion that providing access to contraceptives violated the freedom of any religious institution. Churches are given complete freedom by the Constitution to preach that birth control is immoral, but they have not been given the right to laws that would deprive their followers or employees of the right to disagree with that teaching.

The whole notion that the government cannot compel a church to support that which it considers sinful is bogus. Even if churches themselves do not pay taxes, they collect income tax for their employees—they could pay less if employees did not have their salaries taxed—and the government surely spends that money on projects the churches consider (or should consider) sinful. (Think war and capital punishment, not to mention Planned Parenthood.)

In reality, what the Catholic bishops and their allies are demanding is not so much relief from a morally compromised situation, as a license for the church to impose its will on others. Not only should this not be allowed in the case of Catholic universities, hospitals, and the like, but it also should be disallowed for churches themselves. The exemption of churches from the obligation to provide contraception is, in reality, an unconstitutional meddling of the state in religion. The government is assisting Catholic churches in forcing its female employees to abide by Catholic doctrine on penalty of economic hardship. This is not religious freedom; it is government collusion in oppression of individual rights.

Politics

Of course, this whole controversy is about politics in one way or another. The Catholic bishops are continuing their campaign against abortion and contraception, and the Republican candidates simply have a program of disparaging everything President Obama does. Claiming that the president is an enemy of religion plays well to the Tea Party crowd. Of course, Rick Santorum is a special case. He is an über Roman Catholic who would gleefully outlaw all abortions and all contraception. Newt Gingrich is also Catholic, but, although he is anti-choice, he has not declared himself to be against family planning. Who knows what Mitt Romney really thinks, and who cares what Ron Paul thinks?

There is much that is odd about the position of the Catholic bishops, a group that has moved strongly to the right on recent years. Whereas the bishops’ position no doubt makes the Pope’s day, it is widely reported that 98% of Catholic women use birth control at some point in their lives. Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice are about as polar opposites as anyone could possibly imagine here. Catholic opinion is split on the president’s contraception mandate. If Catholic women can get over the phony war-on-religion argument, however, they are likely to be more sympathetic to the president and less sympathetic to the church’s all-male episcopate.

There is indication that President Obama has, with his latest compromise, won over Planned Parenthood and some Catholic groups, even if Catholic bishops are still trying to decide what should be their final position. The bishops should consider whether they want to damage Obama on this issue, since, sexual issues aside, Democrats are more sympathetic to traditional Catholic issues than the current crop of Republicans.

Some Democrats have criticized Obama for not anticipating the firestorm his original policy announcement created. It has been argued either that he should have been better prepared to defend his policy or that he should not have—as they see it—gratuitously offended the Catholic Church to begin with. I agree that the administration should have been better prepared to make its case for whatever its policy was going to be. I would have preferred to see the mandate applied to all employees, however, including those of individual churches.

Despite some significant accomplishments, the Obama administration has suffered from a lack of will and a misguided hopefulness that bargains can be struck with the current Congress held hostage by Tea Party ideologues. Republican presidential candidates have portrayed the president as weak and ineffective, a charge not without some basis in fact. The president has shown some rare determination in the matter of the contraception mandate, and he will do well to show, between now and November, that he is firm but reasonable.

What About Iran?

There is more and more talk in the news suggesting that Israel or the U.S. might—or even should—take military action against Iran in order to keep that country from developing a nuclear weapons capability. Not surprisingly, such talk has come from Republican presidential candidates. Disappointingly, President Obama is also issuing thinly veiled threats against Iran and declaring solidarity with Israel.

Although I am not unalterably opposed to military action against Iran, it is difficult for me to imagine a situation in which such action would be both justified and unlikely to ignite a conflagration that would quickly burn out of control.

I doubt—though not as much as I would like to doubt—that President Obama would initiate a military strike or give tacit approval to Israel for one. I am less sanguine about the self-control of a President Romney or President Gingrich. What I most fear, however, is Israeli military action taken without U.S. consent, explicit or otherwise.

Unfortunately, the U.S. policy of unconditional support for the State of Israel means that, in certain areas, U.S. policy is determined in Tel Aviv and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the ability to draw the U.S. into a Middle East war whose outcome is uncertain and likely to be catastrophic.

What should the U.S. do if we suspect that Israel is about to launch an air strike against the Islamic Republic of Iran? (Even if Israel does not ask permission—I doubt it will—I suspect that the U.S. will know that something is in the works.) The answer is simple: We should put our own planes in the air prepared to shoot down Israeli warplanes. We should, of course, first inform the government of Iran of our—and Israel’s—intentions.

Update, 2/10/2012: The New York Times carried a front-page story yesterday headlined “U.S. and Israel Split on Speed of Iran Threat.” It included this distressing paragraph:

Officials said that for all the friction between the United States and Israel over issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it had not spilled over into the dialogue over Iran, in part because Mr. Obama has ordered it “walled off” from politics.

Cat Owners Unite!

Doritos® Logo

Did you watch the Doritos commercial in which a smart aleck dog has apparently killed a cat and bribes a husband with Doritos not to tell his wife what happened? I just sent the following message to Frito-Lay:

I was not amused, but appalled by your Super Bowl commercial suggesting that a dog had killed a cat. IT WAS NOT FUNNY. Before you run another such commercial, you had better check how many cat owners there are in this country. Apparently, it is more than you think.

I own two cats, and I used to buy Doritos. I'm not sure now that I will ever buy another Frito-Lay product.

I hope you were amused.

Very truly yours,
Lionel Deimel
http://blog.deimel.org

You, too, can send e-mail to Frito-Lay here.


Update, 2/7/2012: Today, I received the message below from Frito-Lay:

Hi Lionel,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Consumer opinions are very important to us and we appreciate knowing how you feel.

The ad was consumer created through our 'Crash the Super Bowl' campaign. Consumers submitted ads that were then selected by a public vote. Please know your comments will be shared with the appropriate teams here at Frito-Lay. We apologize, as we would never intentionally offend our consumers.

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and the constructive spirit in which they were offered. We hope our future actions will restore your confidence in our name and will earn back your trust and support.

Best regards,

Tina
Frito-Lay Consumer Relations
011842844A

More on AMiA

A few days ago, I wrote a post about the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). Since then, I was made aware of an interesting narrative from three AMiA priests in the D.C. area. “Why Did AMiA Break Away from the Anglican Province of Rwanda?” was written by Dan Claire, Chuck Colson, and Tommy Hinson of RenewDC. Unlike the official AMiA Web site, this document takes the side of Rwanda in the current dispute. “Why Did AMiA Break Away” is dated January 14, 2012, however, and may not reflect the latest developments. The authors state their purpose this way:

This article and the appended timeline are an effort to summarize what happened from the perspective of the Rwandan House of Bishops, based on extensive interviews with the bishops as well as public documents.

Not surprisingly, the cause of the AMiA/Rwanda split comes across as a matter of money and power. The priests begin their story this way:

During the past year, the relationship of Bishop Chuck Murphy, Chairman of the AMiA, and the Rwandan House of Bishops broke down. Under new leadership last January, the House of Bishops sought to understand their working relationship with the AMiA for the sake of providing better accountability and oversight. Murphy, however, preferred to maintain the autonomy he had enjoyed under Emmanuel Kolini, the former Rwandan Archbishop. Kolini retired at the end of 2010 but has sought to remain the primary Rwandan liaison with Murphy and the AMiA. Onesphore Rwaje, the new Archbishop of Rwanda, values collaborative and collegial leadership, and has endeavored to include the entire House of Bishops in overseeing the AMiA.

The House of Bishops of the Rwandan church wrote to Murphy on November 30, 2011, charging that he had

• “constantly disregarded the decisions and counsels of the House of Bishops”;
• “misused the authority given to him” in advancing a plan to break away from the Province of Rwanda, and had ignored their repeated requests to halt;
• dodged their questions regarding financial gifts designated for Rwanda[; and]
• used “abusive language” in speaking of the Rwandan bishops (e.g. “knucklehead, reversed colonialism, lawlessness”).

The narrative of “Why Did AMiA Break Away” necessarily ends without a satisfying conclusion, as the relationships of AMiA, the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, and the Anglican Church in North America are in flux. The authors offer these observations and questions:

Archbishop Rwaje and the House of Bishops are grieved by the resignations and the fractures within the AMiA. Particularly in light of their spiritual heritage in the East African Revival, they mourn the divisions that have occurred in the body of Christ. Likewise, they are saddened by the ways that they have been mischaracterized. At a time when they are enjoying unprecedented unity as a House of Bishops, why do they continue to be described as a divided house? Further, their motives have been misunderstood. Why have their efforts to work together as a team with the full AMiA Council of Bishops and to achieve transparent communication and finances been construed perversely as a lust for power? These unforeseen and undesired outcomes are heartbreaking to the Rwandan bishops.

“Why Did AMiA Break Away” makes interesting reading. Especially enlightening is the timeline, which carefully documents the AMiA conflicts, quotes extensively from relevant documents, and takes up most of the 13 pages of the document from the three D.C. priests.

Thinking about Sex outside the Box

I came upon the graphic below on Facebook today and was instantly struck by its brilliance. The point of it is that people are not simply either male or female. Moreover, there are a number of aspects of a person that we refer to as gender, sex, etc., that are not binary, but occur on more or less continuous scales. Perhaps this is seen most easily on what is represented below as the Biological Sex scale. A person born with an extra X chromosome or a person born with both male and female sex organs has a problem when presented with M and F check boxes on a form. Such a person certainly has a sex; it just isn’t either male or female!

The Genderbread Person graphic is intended to get people thinking outside the box and to realize that dividing people into the classes Men and Women is a simplification of reality.

The Genderbread Person is the work of Samuel Killermann, whose Web site is It’s Pronounced Metrosexual. Killermann provides an explanation of his creation (so I don’t have to) here. His diagram—and his explanation, for that matter—may not be perfect, but it has a certain elegance and is surely thought provoking.

Click on the graphic below, by the way, for a larger view.

Anglican? Mission in the Americas

Trying valiantly to suppress schadenfreude, I have been following the stormy relationship of the Anglican Mission in the Americas and the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda with great interest. I was surprised when George Conger reported that relations between the two churches were irretrievably broken, a statement soon contradicted by AMiA Bishop John Rodgers.

Archbishop Robert Duncan

Even more interesting has been the attitude of Archbishop Robert Duncan, head of the Anglican Church in North America. Relations between AMiA and ACNA have been on-again, off-again. AMiA joined ACNA, then left ACNA and became a “mission partner,” and now seems to be in limbo. Duncan needs Rwanda more than he needs AMiA, and being too friendly with an untethered AMiA might alienate Duncan’s African friends, on whom he is counting to eventually gain a seat at the Anglican Communion table.

Duncan, his Cabinet, Executive Committee, and Anglican Relief and Development are meeting in Tallahassee tomorrow and Thursday. No doubt, the mercurial AMiA will have its place in the agenda.

A January 28, 2012, story about the AMiA in The Tennessean included this:

But they’ve been left in limbo recently after most of the group’s [AMiA’s] leaders resigned from the Rwandan church in a fight over money and power.

They are still technically part of the Church of Rwanda, but most of their bishops are not.

“No one on earth recognizes them as a legitimate Anglican group,” [the Rev. Thomas] McKenzie said.

Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America agrees.

Duncan’s group, which was formed in 2009, hopes eventually to be recognized by the Anglican Communion as a legitimate alternative to the Episcopal Church. The group includes many congregations that once aligned themselves with overseas bishops.

Since the Anglican Mission’s leaders are not part of the Anglican Church in North America or the Rwandan church they are basically an independent group.

“They are now former Anglicans,” he said. “That’s what they have to grapple with.”

If the AMiA is not Anglican because it is unconnected to a province of the Anglican Communion, is not the Anglican Church in North America, which, despite its self-declared status as a “province-in-formation,” also is unconnected to a province of the Anglican Communion, also not Anglican? Am I missing something, or is Archbishop Duncan?


Postscript: Among the comments on the story from The Tennessean was this wise observation from one David A. Elliott III: “Angry people form angry churches.”

A (Very) Close Look at Doll’s Pro-Covenant Essay

The Most Reverend William White

On the Web site of Modern Church, Jonathan Clatworthy has recently posted a rebuttal to Peter Doll’s pro-Covenant essay that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has sent to Church of England bishops. (See my post on Comprehensive Unity: The No Anglican Covenant Blog.) Clatworthy’s argument is brilliant, and I must congratulate him for his ability to see the forest presented by Doll, whereas I could only see trees—trees that, individually, seemed to make no sense to me.

Clatworthy’s “Americanism and the Anglican Covenant” is insightful, but it may still be profitable to examine some of the individual points that Doll uses to build his overall argument in favor of adopting the proposed Anglican Covenant. Doll touts his American background to lend credence to his picture of The Episcopal Church and its history. His English audience is likely to be taken in by this, but to me and to other Episcopalian friends, Doll seems to be describing a church unknown to us.

What I propose to do, then, is to examine individual assertions made by Doll and leave it to the likes of Clatworthy to criticize the global aspects of Doll’s case for the Covenant. To do this, I will reproduce all of Doll’s essay, interspersing my observations between his paragraphs.

The Doll paper begins

The Anglican Communion has fascinated me since my mid-teens, as long as I’ve been an Anglican and had an academic interest in history – the different national churches, the translation of the Prayer Book into myriad languages, the English parish church building exported into every climate and exotic architectural style. I also have a great affection for and owe a great debt to the Episcopal Church, which inspired and nurtured my faith in the first place. Although my focus here is on the role the American church is playing in the current travails of the Communion, I don’t for a moment pretend that the Americans are solely responsible for these difficulties. The conservative over-reaction to them is equally problematic. But I think I understand American religious culture from the inside, which I cannot say about the post-colonial churches. I also speak as someone who values deeply the comprehensive identity of Anglicanism particularly as I’ve found it lived out in the Church of England, even if I frequently can’t fathom how such a broad and diverse institution manages to hold together.

The author is clearly establishing his credentials here. Only later do we see that he is blowing smoke for his Church of England readers. He generously admits that Americans are not alone responsible for the chaos in the Anglican Communion, and he admits that he knows other Communion churches less well than he does The Episcopal Church. (That this is true becomes increasingly distressing.) Incidentally, The Episcopal Church is a post-colonial church—more about that later.

Also, a word of caution. I don’t offer a detailed apologia or critique of the terms of the Covenant. I’m more interested in its overall implications for the way we live out our lives in Christ. I see the Covenant as offering a choice between our declining into a federation of churches sharing a common heritage or drawing ever more closely together in Christ as a real communion of churches.

As Clatworthy has pointed out, the Anglican Communion is in no danger of “declining into a federation of churches sharing a common heritage.” That is exactly what the Communion has been heretofore. Until recently, that has been considered “a real communion of churches.” The actual danger is that the Covenant will convert the Communion into a collection of client churches required to adopt uniform dogma promulgated by an episcopally dominated international and unaccountable bureaucracy.

So, first of all, I want to contradict the widespread assumption around the communion that the Episcopal Church is simply an ultra-liberal institution, through and through. While its leadership is predominantly liberal, many of its members are more cautious and conservative. They would now identify themselves as being communion-minded, or ‘Windsor-compliant’ as it’s often expressed. This is an historic tension within the Episcopal Church, certainly present in the colonial period but coming to the fore only when efforts were made to unite the members of the Church of England into a national Church following the American War of Independence. Those churchmen led by William White, later the first bishop of Pennsylvania, who were commissioned to come up with a Book of Common Prayer for the American church had to produce something that reflected the reality of the new political situation they found themselves in — no more prayers for the monarch. In addition, however, they were men deeply imbued with the contractual principles of the Enlightenment. White modelled the government of the new church on the principles of civil government enunciated in the American Constitution. In that civil society, authority was understood to flow up from below, from the people, whereas the Church of England insisted that the episcopate was the source of authority and government in the church under God — authority from above. The enlightenment churchmen also took the opportunity to reshape the Prayer Book according to their ideological ends. They claimed in the preface to the proposed Prayer Book of 1786 that ‘the doctrines of the Church of England are preserved entire’. It’s highly important to note this declared intention to be faithful to the inheritance from the Church of England. It is a regular refrain throughout the history of the Episcopal Church, and it has often signalled in fact significant alterations to that inheritance. This proposed Prayer Book deleted the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds and omitted the descent into hell from the Apostles’ Creed, along with parts of the Psalter and the lectionary that were deemed to be ‘hurtful’, the sign of the Cross in baptism, various of the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from Evening Prayer. Anything that the revisers did not deem ‘rational’ was chopped. With the best will in the world, it’s difficult to see how they could say that ‘the doctrines of the Church of England are preserved entire’ with these changes.

It is true, of course, that The Episcopal Church has never been theologically monochromatic. One could say the same about the Church of England. It is also true that the American church developed in a climate of democracy. (Note that the church constitution and the United States Constitution were developed in parallel; the former was not modeled on the latter. This is unclear in Doll’s text.) The Americans established an episcopate “locally adapted in the methods of its administration” to the needs of the United States. I will have more to say about the proposed prayer book presently.

If the rational enlightenment assumptions of William White marked one pole of Episcopalian believing in this period, Samuel Seabury, who had already been consecrated Bishop of Connecticut by the Scottish Episcopalians, represented the alternative. The New England Anglican tradition had its origins in the conversion of several leading Congregationalist clergy and scholars to the Church of England, having been convinced by their reading of the ancient Church Fathers of the necessity of Episcopal ordination. Despite having started out as a tiny, oppressed minority in puritan New England, they were a dynamic and influential high church movement drawing significant numbers of converts from the Congregational established churches. In his analysis of the proposed Prayer Book, Seabury rightly perceived the influence of Deism (God as a distant clock-maker), Unitarianism (denial of the Trinity), and Arianism (denial of the divinity of Christ) at work. His brand of Anglicanism insisted on fidelity to the witness of the early Church, a catholic adherence to the inheritance of faith: He wrote, ‘the surest way to guard against this mischief, is to attend to the interpretations of the oldest Christians and of the universal Church.’ And so Seabury fought a rearguard action against these changes. The desire for the unity of the Church was sufficiently strong that he was able to reverse the most serious of the changes. In this he was aided and abetted by the bishops of the Church of England, who refused to consecrate bishops for America unless the American Prayer Book remained more faithful to the inheritance of 1662.

Doll makes Seabury the orthodox hero of The Episcopal Church’s formative period and White the defeated outlier. This nearly reverses the conventional understanding of the situation by Episcopalians. The northern colonies had strong Anglo-Catholic sympathies, but Church of England parishes were few. Church of England parishes were numerous in the South, and particularly in Virginia. These churches were more Protestant in outlook, and this is the viewpoint possessed by William White. White was neither a Deist, nor a Unitarian, nor an Arian. The proposed prayer book to which Doll refers was just that—proposed. The book finally approved in 1789 was the result of give-and-take among American Anglicans eager to establish a new church for a new nation. It was not a radical departure from the English book of 1662.

I mention this telling vignette from the history of the Episcopal Church to remind us that the tensions that we see today in the life of that Church are no new phenomenon. They have been present at least since the beginning of its independent history. I find this strangely comforting. The doctrinal issues under consideration then — the divinity of Christ, the Trinitarian nature of God — were of far greater import than the issues that divide us now. If they could manage to preserve unity then, we can do so now, if it means enough to us.

I have no problems here. Would that churches in Uganda, Nigeria, and elsewhere—one should include the Anglican Church in North America here—agreed.

My fear is that we no longer care enough about unity to hold on to it. Unity is not an idea that means much in the context of American religious life. Americans are strongly imbued with a sense of their own ‘exceptionalism’, and this is (if possible) even more true of their religious than of their political and social life. The particular extreme reformed Protestantism that arrived with the early settlers has formed the theological habits of the continent, with a conviction that in the new world the original humanity, before-the-fall humanity could be recovered. This assumption has been further shaped and expanded by Americans’ experience of the land: as settlers moved west, inescapably they were always encountering new sights, new opportunities, new peoples. If ever there were a land in which humanity thought it could re-invent itself, this was it. When the historian Frederick Jackson Turner formulated his ‘frontier’ thesis of American history, he perceived that persistent adaptation to frontier living allowed the constant reinvention of civilization from its barbarian beginnings. As the philosopher Joseph Needleman said in his examination of the Shakers, ‘America is the land of zero. Start from zero, we start from nothing. That is the idea of America.’

This paragraph is very wrong. Doll begins by conflating unity with uniformity. The Episcopal Church began with a quest for unity in the face of the diversity that even Doll recognizes. Over the years, the church has had its disputes, which have largely mirrored similar conflicts in England. (Much of the nineteenth century could be characterized by disputes between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, with broad-church Episcopalians seeking a viable reconciliation.) To be sure, America seemed to be the cradle of myriad idiosyncratic religious movements, advocating everything from snake handling and lay celibacy to plural marriage, but The Episcopal Church was largely untouched by America’s weirder religious excesses.

The American religious experience is like no other, and even if American Anglicans have historically identified themselves as standing apart from evangelical Protestantism, as being a cut above socially and intellectually, their actual experience is nevertheless deeply imbued with these same primordialist assumptions. From the beginning of the Republic, American Anglicans assumed their church was ‘purer’ than the Mother Church of England because they had disposed of state establishment. America is a self-referring cultural power; it does not occur to most Americans to consult others, politically or spiritually, to arrive at an understanding of truth and right. The great American literary scholar Harold Bloom, a secular Jew, has argued that virtually all Americans, whatever their religious disposition or denominational label, are Gnostics. What does he mean by this? 1) That there is no higher religious authority than the private individual. 2) That every individual can reach religious truth by his or her own efforts. 3) External expressions of formal religion (churches, worship, creeds) are unnecessary, and potentially a harmful block to true spirituality. 4) Any attempt to tell me what to believe is a threat to religious freedom. In such an approach to religion, there is no place for the fall, no place for the assumption that our human condition is fundamentally flawed by disobedience, such that we need to be redeemed from sin and death through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

This paragraph is pure poppycock. True, Episcopalians believed it appropriate that a free people have a church not entangled with the state. (Many in England are belatedly coming to the same conclusion.) As for Americans not consulting others to “arrive at an understanding of truth and right,” I would suggest that the English are even less inclined toward such consultation. (If the Church of England adopts the Covenant, it quickly will become clear just how disinclined the English are in this regard!) In any case, the description of Americans by Bloom that Doll cites applies nicely to American megachurches. It has nothing to do with Episcopal parishes. Moreover, the image of The Episcopal Church as the Republican Party at prayer is no longer appropriate. The church is broad in its makeup, and Hispanics represent the fastest-growing segment of the Episcopal population.

I don’t think it takes much knowledge or experience of the Episcopal Church to see the power that this ‘American Religion’ has over its life. If ‘personal experience’ has absolute authority, if finding the ‘real me’ is the central quest of human existence, then the individual requires complete freedom of choice unconstrained by any authority outside the self. A church inculturated in such a setting will affirm the individual quest in all its forms. Inclusion becomes a fundamental value for the church, the unconditional affirmation of all personal experience of whatever race, creed, gender, or sexuality. The purpose of the church is to validate those who have found their true identity and have thus found God. This would seem to be the thinking behind a recent orthodoxy of the Episcopal Church, the welcoming of all of whatever faith or none to communion. This seems to me a much more serious issue than the current disagreements over sexuality. By obviating the need for baptism, it leaves no space for the atoning power of Christ’s death and resurrection, repentance, faith or holiness of life.

Here is where Doll shows his hand. The foregoing nonsense about American religion is intended to set up a straw man for him to attack. In no way does The Episcopal Church advance “finding the ‘real me’’’ as “the central quest of human existence,” and the suggestion that it does is offensive. If English bishops to whom the Doll paper was sent actually believe this calumny, there truly is no hope for reconciliation within the present Anglican Communion. The inclusiveness of The Episcopal Church is not the product of an anything-goes acceptance of behavior, no matter how outrageous; it is the acting out of the admonition in the 1979 prayer book’s Baptismal Covenant to “strive for justice and peace among all people” and to “respect the dignity of every human being.” Doll takes another cheap shot at The Episcopal Church by attacking open communion, which is not technically allowed and is not widely practiced. (I personally am disturbed by the practice, for which I believe there is little theological justification.) In any case, The Episcopal Church is not in the business of “obviating the need for baptism.”

And if the individual is sure that no institution or system of belief can have any authority over the self, then it is equally true that no other church can have any authority over an autonomous national church. The attitude of the Episcopal Church is very firmly, ‘No one can tell us what to do.’ I remember particularly vividly the response of the American House of Bishops to the scheme proposed by the Communion Primates in 2007 for a scheme to provide pastoral oversight for congregations alienated from their own bishops. The bishops said, ‘It violates our founding principles as the Episcopal Church following our liberation from colonialism and the beginning of a life independent of the Church of England.’ These words and the rest of the reply seem to me an exercise in historical self-deception and wishful thinking. The Anglican church in the American colonies had an ambiguous relationship with the Revolution – some supported it, but many were firmly opposed to it, remaining loyal to the British crown. The only ‘liberation’ the Revolution brought Episcopalians was from much of the church’s financial assets and historic influence. Americans did not experience ‘colonialism’ in the same sense as African and Asian nations in the twentieth century. It is utter nonsense, I would argue, to equate the current American experience with that of African and Asian post-colonial societies. And yet if we take the statement at face-value, it must express how these Episcopalians feel about their situation. These rich and powerful Americans, the most privileged people on earth, identify their own experience of being oppressed and persecuted for their advocacy of gay rights with, for example, the experience of black South Africans under apartheid.

In the first sentence of this paragraph, Doll uses the “fact” he claims to have established in the previous one to conclude that The Episcopal Church cannot admit of any ecclesiastical authority over it. This is his way of denigrating the church’s traditional claim to autonomy. In fact, autonomy is a claim as old as the Anglican Communion itself, and one of the hallmarks of traditional Anglicanism that the Covenant seeks to extinguish.

The rest of this paragraph is, to use Doll’s own words, “an exercise in historical self-deception and wishful thinking.” True, not all Church of England members in the Colonies supported the Revolution. Despite the fact that some clergy fled to Canada, most clergy, particularly in the South, did support the Revolution. Laypeople did so overwhelmingly. The church suffered few losses of assets because of the Revolution, though it arguably lost influence in states where it had been established.

What follows is strange indeed. According to Doll, Episcopal Church bishops said, in response to an attempt by the Anglican primates to dictate how the American church should be run, “It [the alternative pastoral oversight demanded by the primates] violates our founding principles as the Episcopal Church following our liberation from colonialism and the beginning of a life independent of the Church of England.” He then goes on to dismiss the church’s claim to autonomy because the colonialism experienced by the American Colonies was not as oppressive as that experienced by black South Africans! The Episcopal Church is not autonomous because its forebears suffered oppression; it is autonomous because it established an existence separate from the Church of England with a democratic polity in which only its members participate. What is a bedrock American idea is that of government by consent of the governed. Episcopalians have consented only to be governed by their constitution, canons, and prayer book, as established by the General Convention.

The further irony is, of course, that the Anglican Communion would not exist as it does without the efforts of the American Church to force the calling of the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. Their bishops wanted to have a chance to condemn the liberal theological tendency represented by Essays and Reviews and Biblical criticism and Bishop Colenso. Then they wanted the Communion to be mutually accountable and interdependent. Now the issues are different and the roles are reversed. Now it is the American bishops who resist claims of reciprocal obligation. So what is it about the Covenant that so offends and frightens them? Why does it have them running for their muskets to repel the new imperialists?

However upsetting the Colenso affair, it is well known that that first Lambeth Conference was not intended to be legislative. Archbishop Longley made it clear at the outset that the gathering was intended to allow the attending bishops to “discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action.” Only since passage of the notorious 1998 Resolution I.10 have bishops argued seriously that Lambeth resolutions are somehow binding. (In a sense, that resolution was the ultimate source of the current chaos in the Communion.)

Bishop of Minnesota Henry Whipple put it this way in a Lambeth Chapel sermon at the beginning of the 1888 Conference: “In so grave a matter as the restoration of organic unity, we may not surrender anything which is of Divine authority, or accept terms of communion which are contrary to God’s Word. We cannot recognize any usurpation of the rights and prerogatives of national Churches which have a common ancestry, lest we heal ‘the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly,’ and say ‘peace, where there is no peace;’ but we do say that all which is temporary and of human choice or preference we will forego, from our love to our own kinsmen in Christ.” (Recall that the Lambeth version of the Quadrilateral was promulgated at the Lambeth Conference of 1888.)

Moreover, bishops attending nineteenth century Lambeth Conferences were not seeking a “mutually accountable and interdependent” relationship among Anglican churches. That phrase—actually “mutual responsibility and interdependence”—came along three-quarters of a century later at the 1963 Toronto Anglican Conference. The phrase was really a demand for older churches to treat newer churches as partners, rather than as clients. (See “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence.”) It was decidedly not about churches telling one another what to do.

The theology of the Anglican Covenant is an expression of an approach to ecclesiology called conciliarism. This is the view that the authority of councils of the church is above that of popes. It emerged in the face of papal claims of supremacy in the middle ages, was submerged by the power of papal autocracy from the 15th century, and only re-emerged in the Roman Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council. For Anglicans who regard themselves as both catholic and reformed, conciliarism has been an important foundational principle, a reflection of their accountability to the faith of the whole church. It takes us away from a centralised model of church authority to one where authority is dispersed throughout the Body of Christ; the body needs to speak in common to reflect its unity. This belief is reflected in the enunciation in the Covenant document of the venerable principle, ‘what affects the communion of all should be decided by all’. It is an expression of what we mean by ‘catholicity’, that we orient our lives according to the unity of the whole Body.

The assertion that “[t]he theology of the Anglican Covenant is … conciliarism” is astounding. If this is true, why has Anglican been without an authoritative council for nearly five hundred years? Doll is indulging in wish fulfillment here. Additionally, there are at least two problems with the principle of “what affects the communion of all should be decided by all,” no matter how venerable Doll takes it to be. First, as Clatworthy observes, decisions for the Communion under the Covenant are made by a small number of people, mostly bishops. These deciders would largely be unelected and not directly accountable to the majority of the world’s Anglicans. (Americans are concerned about the consent of the governed thing here.) Second, how is it decided that something actually “affects the communion of all”? Most Episcopalians would argue that whomever an Episcopal Church diocese chooses for a bishop is the business of no one outside The Episcopal Church. In fact, under the Covenant, the same small group that decides Communion issues also decides what issues need to be decided. (Can you say “tyranny?)

In contemporary ecumenical discussions, the tradition of conciliar theology is represented by the prominence of ‘communion’ (in Greek koinonia) as the heart of the life of the church. The fellowship of the Church is inseparable from the life of God the Holy Trinity, the mutual self-giving love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The God who creates human beings in his own image and likeness creates us for communion with him and with one another in the Body of Christ. The communion principle is crucial for ecumenical relations for obvious reasons. If, as is commonly acknowledged, all Christians are united by baptism in the Body of Christ, then it is impossible for any denomination to dismiss any other, to say of other Christians that they do not matter. Christ has broken down the dividing walls of human sin and estrangement and made us one (Eph 2.12-22). Therefore we have an obligation to listen to and belong to one another, to live as those who know themselves to be new creatures in God through baptism and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

There is a good deal of theological gobbledygook here that I will claim neither to understand nor to be capable of evaluating. This seems as much an argument for agreement with the Methodists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, etc. Why does the Covenant only cover Anglicans? (The Episcopal Church never suggested that it had no need of other Anglican churches, by the way.)

Communion ecclesiology has been the foundation of the recent Anglican examination of their common life in the midst of disagreement. The Eames Commission Report of 1989/90, the Virginia Report of 1997, and the Windsor Report of 2004 have all insisted that communion principles are the only conceivable foundation for the renewal of the common life of the Anglican Communion, now falling prey to fraction and schism. Rather than living as citizens of Christ’s kingdom here on earth, the advance guard of his reign of justice, mercy, and peace, we are living as creatures in a Darwinian jungle, ‘red in tooth and claw’, using every available legal and illegal, political and verbal means to slash and savage one another, and all for what end — the right to claim the label ‘Anglican’?

The uniformity of the recommendations of the Eames Commission Report, Virginia Report, and Windsor Report is, according to Doll compelling. It seems less compelling and remarkable when one realizes that Robin Eames headed each of the groups that produced these reports. Moreover, the reports are simply reports. Never were they accepted as definitive statements of Communion policy, nor, arguably, does any Anglican body have the authority to offer such acceptance. Clearly, Eames is fixated on a particular idea. He is not, however, the Anglican Communion or a typical Anglican. Doll’s Darwinian metaphor is embarrassing hyperbole.

We do have a way out of this mess. Since we are caught up in the divine life, it ought to be second nature to us. The Covenant document points to the virtues of Ephesians 4, ‘Faithfulness, honesty, gentleness, humility, patience, forgiveness and love itself, lived out in mutual deference and service (Mk 10.44-45) among the Church’s people and through its ministries’ (§3). These are the necessary corollaries of communion theology and living. Unfortunately there are seemingly insurmountable cultural and religious barriers to this mode of life. Communion theology assumes that hearing the Scriptures proclaimed is a communal practice, that the teachings of tradition and reason need to be communally discerned. But the assumptions of a common mind, a common listening, a common discerning in patience and love over time seem to be incompatible with the assumptions of what I’ve characterised here as ‘American Religion’.

Doll resumes his direct attack on Americans here. His insistence on the need for uniformity in doctrine surely is incompatible with “American Religion.”More to the point, his uniformitarianism—a Clatworthy term—is profoundly un-Anglican. Bishop Whipple, in the aforementioned Lambeth Conference sermon, put it this way: “ I reverently believe that the Anglo-Saxon Church has been preserved by God’s Providence (if her children will accept this Mission) to heal the divisions of Christendom, and lead on in His work to be done in the eventide of the world. She holds the truths which underlie the possibility of reunion, the validity of all Christian baptism in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. She ministers the two sacraments of Christ as of perpetual obligation, and makes faith in Jesus Christ, as contained in the Catholic Creeds, a condition of Christian fellowship. The Anglo-Saxon Church does not perplex men with theories and shibboleths which many a poor Ephraimite cannot speak—she believes in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, three Persons and one God, but she does not weaken faith in the Triune God by human speculations about the Trinity in Unity. She believes that the sacred Scriptures were written by inspiration of God, but she has no theory about inspiration. She holds up the Atonement of Christ as the only hope of a lost world; but she has no philosophy about the Atonement. She teaches that it is through the Holy Ghost that men are united to Christ. She ministers the sacraments appointed by Christ as His channels of grace; but she has no theory to explain the manner of Christ’s presence to penitent believing souls. She does not explain what God has explained, but celebrates these Divine mysteries, as they were held and celebrated for one thousand years after our Lord ascended into heaven, before there was any East or West arrayed against each other in the Church of God. Surely we may and ought to be first to hold up the olive branch of peace over strife, and say, ‘Sirs, ye are brethren.’” This, of course, is not the approach we find in the Anglican Covenant.Whipple’s sermon, however, was well received.

If that religion is fundamentally about an individual quest for the ‘real me’, about continually moving on to new frontiers, about the utter irrelevance of any authority outside the self, then reference to the authority of a common reading of Scripture, the common understanding of tradition, the common discernment of reason have very little meaning. So (from an American perspective) if our partners in the Gospel don’t agree with our understanding of Scripture, tradition and reason, it becomes necessary to change the parameters of our relationship.

Doll’s premise is bogus. Furthermore, Episcopalians want to preserve the parameters of their church’s relationship to the Anglican Communion. It is the over-reacting conservatives and Covenant advocates such as Doll and Rowan Williams who are looking to revise the Communion’s traditional relationships.

One approach has been, in place of responding to the challenge of mutual accountability, that American church leaders have claimed that communion theology puts an unacceptable priority on unity over truth and justice. Whose truth and whose justice are not issues up for debate. Nor is the idea that justice, truth, and communion might have something to say to one another. The American church is not prepared to accept further consultation or dialogue over this issue nor to wait for the rest of the church to catch up with its own understanding of the place of same-sex relationships in the life of the church. Whatever is acceptable and right in a particular American cultural context must be universally applicable to every other culture and context. There is more than an element of cultural imperialism in these American attitudes. Ironically, they resonate strongly with the gung-ho combination of domestic isolationism and foreign interventionism of American political life which so many American liberals deplore, and yet they don’t seem to be able to see the parallels here.

This is yet another libelous paragraph. The Episcopal Church has not tried to impose its views on other churches; it has only tried to explain the logic of the actions it has taken. The charge that Americans are unwilling “to accept further consultation or dialogue” is ironic. Many Communion churches continue to vilify people for their sexual orientation without listening to the people so marginalized, and even the Church of England considers how to implement women bishops in all-male committees. Doll apparently believes that the Church is more important than people. Episcopalians, on the other hand, tend to see justice delayed as justice denied. They are reluctant to throw their homosexual sisters and brothers under the bus for the sake of Communion peace. This attitude is influenced not a little by guilt over the Episcopal Church’s failure to oppose slavery aggressively or to champion the rights of freed blacks. American society moves quickly, and delay of the Episcopal Church to respond to the developing moral conscience of the American people while waiting for the rest of the Communion to “catch up” threatens the very existence of the church.

While it is true that Americans tend to focus on American society and politics, this, as Clatworthy has pointed out, is natural for a large and complex country. It is unfortunate that the U.S. has gotten a reputation for foreign adventures, most recently due to the presidency of George W. Bush. Ironically, however, Episcopalians tend to be more concerned with the world beyond U.S. borders than the average American and to be as appalled by U.S. imperialism as anyone. Membership in the Anglican Communion has, in fact, fostered greater international awareness.

Another way to skirt around the challenges of accountability has been to reformulate the understanding of the office of bishop. This is necessary because the documents leading to the Covenant have expressed the role of bishop in entirely communal ways. The Virginia Report states, ‘The episcopate is the primary instrument of Anglican unity’ and that Episcopal oversight is properly personal, collegial, and communal. It is personal because ‘Bishops are called by God, in and through the community of the faithful, to personify the tradition of the Gospel and the mission of the Church.’ It is collegial because they share with other bishops the concerns of the local church and the community to the wider Church’ and they ‘bring back the concerns and decisions of the wider church to their local community’. It is communal, because bishops exercise their authority ‘in synod’, within the community of local churches and in communion with one another.

It is not clear how The Episcopal Church is supposed to have “reformulate[d] the understanding of the office of bishop.” The role of bishop was “locally adapted” to the American nation more than two centuries. ago. It seems churlish to complain about it now. It seems to be Archbishop Eames who is eager to change the nature of the episcopacy.

This understanding of the bishop’s office is now being jettisoned by bishops around the communion, both on the left and on the right. American bishops on the left tend to justify this in the name of a ‘prophetic’ understanding of their office, giving expression to the doctrine of radical inclusion, stepping out ahead of the church in ways that are meant to expose its weaknesses and disobedience. Within the Episcopal Church, ‘prophetic’ action has become a favoured way of effecting change in place of prolonged investigation and theological debate. Likewise, bishops on the right have launched missions within the jurisdiction of other churches in defiance of collegiality in order to proclaim their own versions of truth and justice.

It is true that partisans on both the left and right are, as we might say, pushing the Anglican envelope. It is hardly true that “prophetic” action is being used “in place of prolonged investigation and theological debate.” That investigation and debate has been ongoing for some time in The Episcopal Church, and change has largely come though normal canonical procedures. Episcopal incursions, unfortunately, violate traditions and are exceedingly divisive, though they violate no formal inter-Communion agreements. Ironically, the Covenant does nothing to discourage such incursions directly. (See “The Covenant We Do Need.”)

A yet further way of avoiding the claims of mutual accountability has been to hide behind a particular understanding of the autonomy of the national church. The definition of autonomy becomes a legalistic claim to the entire independence of the national church from influence or interference from any other church. The communion relationship is cast in political rather than ecclesial terms: rather than being engaged in a common discernment of truth, the sides must be willing to compromise; one side or other must admit being in the wrong, or else this will necessitate a break-up of the Communion. Many of the more conservative churches have expressed dismay that the Covenant offers no punitive sanctions to punish the Americans and so they want nothing more to do with it.

As I said earlier, the claim of autonomy is not an innovation. The claims of “communion theology” are. One might argue that “common discernment” is actually enhanced by allowing diversity among churches. In America, national legislation is often informed by experiments, both successful and not, undertaken by the individual states.

What Doll says about conservative churches is indeed true. Those church will likely destroy the Anglican Communion as we have known it.

The Covenant understanding of autonomy is very different, expressed as ‘autonomy in communion’. Autonomy in this sense does not imply unfettered freedom. Communion is not a human device for better relations. It is a gift from God and is therefore not something that human decision can break. Therefore, in this sense, ‘autonomy’ is a relational rather than an independent term. Each church is to be self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating – in this way they are autonomous. But according to the principle of communion, they are to exercise that autonomy in mutual subjection and with regard for the common good.

“Autonomy in communion” in Doll’s sense is an oxymoron. What does it mean that communion is a “gift from God”?  Saying this is nothing more than a transparent rhetorical trick to make opponents feel guilty. Who, after all, would reject a gift from God? Was Islam a gift from God? Was World War II?

I’ve often heard people say that they are happy with the theology of the Covenant (sections 1—3) but that they part company with the fourth section – the one that has to do with the consequences of provincial churches not behaving in a collegial manner. This is seen as un-Anglican, as embracing a Roman-style centralising authority. And yet the worst punishment that is being suggested is suspension from participation in the instruments of communion. Given that these rebelling churches do not accept their accountability to these same instruments, this hardly seems like dire punishment.

I daresay there are many Episcopalians who would welcome being tossed from the Communion as an alternative to giving the Episcopal Church’s detractors the satisfaction of having the church leave voluntarily. It is ironic that banishment is seen as a valid response to Communion conflict by those such as Doll who advocate common discernment and compromise. It is likely that The Episcopal Church would quickly be threatened with expulsion were it to adopt the Covenant, as some Anglican primates cannot even deign to take communion with our presiding bishop. How interested in dialogue are they? My prediction is that the Communion with be destroyed or diminished whether or not the Covenant is adopted. The Archbishop of Canterbury probably could have prevented this. He did not.

The Covenant is not ultimately about punishing wayward churches. It is about giving them a choice. Do they want to be gathered into a closer, more mutually accountable relationship, or do they not? If they don’t want to be closer, then inevitably their relationship with the whole will be more distant. One might compare this situation with that of the United Kingdom in relation to the European community. If Britain chooses not to be part of the euro, its voice in the central financial councils will necessarily be less strong. Such choices have consequences.

I could not agree more with this paragraph. I believe that The Episcopal Church will, wisely, reject the Covenant option, as it is in conflict with its mission to minister to its people and society. If the church cannot act until it is allowed to do so by Uganda or Nigeria or Rwanda, it will become irrelevant to American life. The Episcopal Church is not about to jettison the Gospel for the sake of acceptance, but neither is it going to retain tradition for tradition’s sake to placate foreign Anglicans who neither understand nor appreciate American civilization.

Anglicans around the Communion often think about the Covenant in relation to their own church political objectives. It’s often said, ‘If we had to wait for the slowest members, women’s ordination would not yet have happened.’ In fact, over this issue the Episcopal Church was very careful to consult and accept the strictures of communion. That has not been the case in the more recent issue of same-sex relations. Here the Episcopal Church has in practice refused to be bound by communion-wide restrictions. I would argue that if the principles of communion are right, if the Gospel calls us to be subject and accountable to one another, then we must be obedient and patient and trust in the rightness of the outcome under God and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It may mean that we won’t have what we want when we want it. But if this way is Christ’s way, it is the way of the cross. If the journey to unity is to be true to him, then it must be costly and sacrificial.

To begin with, The Episcopal Church has not made its decisions in secret. When it prohibited discrimination against gays in ordination, the election of a gay bishop became inevitable. Further, the discussion of the women’s ordination issue in the Windsor Report is regarded as revisionist history by Episcopalians. Those Anglicans who insist that The Episcopal Church discriminate against LGBT persons are not asking Episcopalians to exercise restraint or to make a costly sacrifice; they are asking Episcopalians to sacrifice instead their sisters and brothers in Christ. Do we have the right to do that?

We find ourselves in a situation where we profess belief that Unity is what God is and what God does in the world, what he calls us to be, but that we find ourselves in danger of giving up on that Unity and accepting the disintegration of our Communion and of affirming our separation. I think the Covenant is worth our support despite its faults. We have no alternative programme. Those who wish to join it will do so because they wish to grow closer to others in the bonds of unity, not because it will enable them to punish wayward churches. They will join because communion is what God is and what he calls us to in Christ. Communion is our starting point, God’s gift to us in Baptism.

The operative words here are “to punish wayward churches.” This is what the Covenant is really about. As has been pointed out by more than one writer, the alternative—certainly one alternative, at any rate—to having a covenant is having no covenant. That has been God’s gift to Anglicans for centuries.

The liberals of the American church begin not with communion but with the ‘prophetic’ call to (their understanding of) justice and truth. The conservatives of the developing world and their GAFCON allies begin with neither communion nor justice but with the church as the guardian of (what they understand to be) truth. The Covenant process stands between these two poles. It values highly justice and truth, but it sees these not as starting points but as fruits of communities that together tenderly nurture unity, communion, and holiness of life. If the Church lives the life of communion for which God created it, then unity, peace, justice and truth will manifest the integrity of our choice to the wider Church and the world.

Doll craftily represents Covenant adoption as a via media position, rather than the radical step that it is. I see no reason why making nice with people in faraway churches with unfamiliar traditions and conflicting theologies is a greater good than truth and justice. The reality is that positive change in the world—post-modern folks are reluctant to say “progress”—does not, historically, come about through agreement  within councils at the summit of hierarchical structures. The world actually needs prophets; it does not need more ecclesiastical bureaucrats. Peter Doll believes otherwise.

Conclusion

There is, alas, a strong streak of anti-Americanism in the higher ranks of English society. Surely, Rowan Williams exhibits it, and I suspect that other English bishops are similarly infected. I don’t pretend to understand this. Perhaps it is residual resentment of the Colonies’ treatment of George III. My English friends have suggested that it has some relation to America’s late entries into the World Wars. In any case, Peter Doll has taken advantage of that anti-Americanism and, with the help of logical fallacies, has produced his diatribe against America and Episcopalians in support of the Anglican Covenant. That the Archbishop of Canterbury would find this libelous document a compelling argument for the Covenant is discouraging. I hope that at least some bishops of the Church of England will see through this transparent philippic.