What Are the Episcopal Church Canons, Anyway?

In light of the recent offer of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Pittsburgh made to departed priests and deacons—“inactive” clergy in the words of the Standing Committee; see diocesan story here—I have been examining Episcopal Church canons invoked by the Standing Committee, those that might have been used, and those entailed by the Standing Committee’s action.

I was having a good deal of trouble understanding Canon III.9.11, which explains how priests who want to be removed from the roll of Episcopal clergy under Canon III.9.8, the canon cited by the Standing Committee, are actually removed. Here his that section, reproduced from the PDF file found at http://www.episcopalarchives.org/e-archives/canons/CandC_FINAL_11.29.2006.pdf, a file I reached from the General Convention 2006 page of the Episcopal Church Web site:

Sec. 11. In the case of the renunciation of the ordained Ministry by a Priest as provided in this Canon, shall be pronounced by the Bishop in the presence of two or more Priests, and shall be entered in the official records of the Diocese in which the Priest being removed is canonically resident. The Bishop who pronounces the declaration of removal as provided in this Canon shall give notice thereof in writing to every Member of the Clergy, each Vestry, the Secretary of the Convention and the Standing Committee of the Diocese in which the Priest was canonically resident; and to all Bishops of this Church, the Ecclesiastical Authority of each Diocese of this Church, the Presiding Bishop, the Recorder of Ordinations, the Secretary of the House of Bishops, the Secretary of the House of Deputies, the Church Pension Fund, and the Board for Church Deployment.

A careful reading will show that the first sentence makes no sense; it almost does, but not quite. Initially, I ignored this. I seemed to get the gist of the thing, and, after all, I’m not a canon lawyer.

At some point, however, I wanted more insight into the significance of Canon III.9.11. I checked out my trusty copy of White’s & Dykman’s Annotated Constitution and Canons. It quickly became obvious that the canon of interest had been changed after the edition I was consulting had been published. This sent me to the Archives of the Episcopal Church, where, after a brief search, I discovered several significant revisions of Title III, the latest being from the 2006 General Convention, namely, Resolution A082. Here is how Canon III.9.11 reads there, which, presumably, is what was intended by the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops:

Sec. 11. In the case of the renunciation of the ordained Ministry by a Priest as provided in this Canon, a declaration of removal shall be pronounced by the Bishop in the presence of two or more Priests, and shall be entered in the official records of the Diocese in which the Priest being removed is canonically resident. The Bishop who pronounces the declaration of removal as provided in this Canon shall give notice thereof in writing to every Member of the Clergy, each Vestry, the Secretary of the Convention and the Standing Committee of the Diocese in which the Priest was canonically resident; and to all Bishops of this Church, the Ecclesiastical Authority of each Diocese of this Church, the Presiding Bishop, the Recorder of Ordinations, the Secretary of the House of Bishops, the Secretary of the House of Deputies, The Church Pension Fund, and the Board for Church Deployment.

There are three differences in what the General Convention apparently passed and what is being represented as Canon III.9.11 to the casual observer. First, as passed, “Sec. 11” is not in boldface. Obviously, no one cares about this, and the difference is hardly an error in the PDF file. Whoever was responsible for preparing the revised version of the constitution and canons simply made necessary formatting changes to assure that the resulting document used a consistent layout. The second difference is similar, though perhaps a tad more significant and deserving of being called an error: “The Church Pension Fund” became “the Church Pension Fund” in the PDF version.

Then there is the third difference. The phrase “a declaration of removal,” which was intended to precede “shall be pronounced by the Bishop in the presence of two or more Priests, and shall be entered in the official records of the Diocese in which the Priest being removed is canonically resident,” is missing in the PDF file. This omission was the reason I had difficulty making sense of the first sentence of the section.

This observation sent me back to the Web. I remembered that Title III was available as a separate PDF file on the Church Publishing Web site. That file can be found at http://www.churchpublishing.org/general_convention/pdf_const_2006/Title_III_Ministry.pdf. And guess what I discovered. The same errors occur in that file!

“Good grief!” I exclaimed. If there are two errors in one section of one canon in the Web versions of the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church, how many other errors might there be? In this instance, one error should cause the reader to be suspicious—I proved to be an insufficiently skeptical reader here—and the other error really made no difference. How many significant but less obvious errors might there be in our governing documents?

I’m not sure I want the answer to that last question. I do hope, however, that those people who revise our canons to reflect the work of the 2009 General Convention will not only verify the correctness of canons altered by that Convention but will also do whatever is necessary to assure Episcopalians that the church’s constitution and canons are what we think they are.

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Addendum. Mr. Richard Taliaferro assures me that the error in Canon III.9.11 occurs also in the book version of the constitution and canons.

There is no corresponding error in Canon III.7.10, by the way, which is the canon analogous to Canon III.9.11 that applies to deacons.

Diocese Clarifies Property Status

Today, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh issued a statement intended to clarify the status of parish property in the wake of Tuesday’s decision by Judge Joseph M. James that diocesan property of the pre-October 4, 2008, diocese belongs properly to the Episcopal Church diocese.

The statement explains that the decision of the court was to settle the meaning of paragraph 1 of the October 14, 2005, stipulation agreed to by the parties of the Calvary lawsuit. Parish property is dealt with in the second paragraph of the stipulation. Today’s statement explains that

Paragraph Two of the 2005 Stipulation requires that there be a dialogue between the diocese and any parish seeking to disaffiliate from the diocese regarding the disposition of property specifically held for or in the name of the parish, followed by mediation (where a neutral third party helps the parties resolve any disputes between them), before the diocese or the parish may resort to the courts to decide the dispute.

The diocese intends to follow this procedural mechanism, now that the Court has made it clear that we are the “Diocese” referred to in the Stipulation.

Lest anyone think the diocese is ready to give away the store, however, the next paragraph is reassuring:

It needs to be understood, however, that Paragraph Two is procedural only. It does not alter the legal or ecclesiastical principles surrounding the questions of whether a parish can disaffiliate from the diocese or whether a disaffiliating congregation may retain parish property.

In other words, expect the Dennis Canon to be part of the negotiation regarding parish property. Moreover, since the diocese soon expects to have a bishop with jurisdiction in place—Bishop Kenneth Price, Jr., is to be approved a provisional bishop at the diocesan convention on October 17—there is someone the general church can hold responsible for upholding the Dennis Canon.

The statement makes another plea to the “realigners” for reconciliation. I suspect that will fall on deaf ears, at least until the fate of parish property is actively in play.

Victory!

The Hon. Joseph M. James, judge of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas made a significant ruling today in the so-called Calvary lawsuit. In particular, Judge James wrote:

Many pages of the parties’ briefs have been used to explain what Paragraph One [of the stipulation agreed to by the parties in 2005] means. However, I find that the language is clear and unambiguous and, therefore, requires no further explanation. The property is to be held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. Regardless of what name defendants now call themselves, they are not the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.

At issue was the ownership of diocesan property, assuming that Bishop Robert Duncan and his followers had validly withdrawn from The Episcopal Church. (If the withdrawal were not valid, it was agreed by all that the property belonged to the Episcopal Church diocese. See “My Day in Court,” which describes the hearing at which the question was argued.)

In the order accompanying the judge’s decision, he says that

1. The authorized representatives of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (led by Bishop Robert H Johnson) shall hold and administer the real and personal property that is subject to Paragraph One of the
   Stipulation of October 14, 2005, subject to the terms of that Stipulation.
2. Counsel for all parties shall meet with the Special Master (Stanley E. Levine, Esquire) within 30 days of this Order.
3. The Special Master will report to the court within 20 days of that meeting and said report shall identify the real and personal property that is subject to Paragraph One of the Stipulation.
4. The court will review the report and enter an appropriate order for the orderly transition of possession, custody, and control over said property.
5. This court retains jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter to enforce the Stipulation and Order of October 14, 2005 and the provisions of this Order.

This decision—the opinion and order can be found here—is a major victory for the Episcopal Church diocese and a severe blow to Bishop (sorry, Archbishop) Robert Duncan. Those parishes that have left with their property will now have to negotiate with the true Diocese of Pittsburgh, as specified in the stipulation. It is to be hoped that the diocese will be less generous regarding property than it has been regarding violations of Episcopal Church canons. (See story here.)

As always, of course, appeal is possible. Success on appeal in this case is, I suspect, unlikely

All Things Bright and Beautiful

The liturgical calendar of the Book of Common Prayer lists Francis of Assisi on October 4. Tomorrow, my church will celebrate the life of Francis in a variety of ways, including our choir’s singing two Francis-related anthems. Among the hymns the congregation will sing is “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” I rather like “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” but the text, which was written for children by Cecil Frances Alexander, does get a bit too cute in places, particularly in the first verse:

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colors,

He made their tiny wings.

The hymn opens with this refrain, which is sung after each verse:

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

Although it was surely not the writer’s intent, the hymn text indirectly raises a serious theological question. It is lovely to think about God’s having made birds, beautiful sunsets, and the fruits of the garden, but what about God’s responsibility for the less bright and beautiful elements of creation? In fact, this question becomes unavoidable to the twenty-first century reader who stumbles into the following, generally suppressed, verse of the hymn:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

He made them, high or lowly,

And ordered their estate.

Most Episcopalians would cringe upon encountering this verse, which, unsurprisingly, does not appear in The Hymnal 1982. I don’t plan to offer the definitive essay here on the relation of God to creation or to solve the problem of suffering. It does seem to me, however, that “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and similar perky texts engage in a certain intellectual dishonesty. (Probably the same charge can be leveled against Christian education for children generally, but I’ll save that diatribe for another day.) What I will do here is offer some additional verses for the hymn in question to bring some balance to Mrs. Alexander’s text. I wrote these in about an hour, primarily to amuse my fellow choir members; I don’t claim that these verses are especially polished. Perhaps, however, they will inspire readers to write their own verses in this vein. My contributions:

E. coli and streptococcus,

And viruses causing the flu:

He made all these little buggers

Just to pester me and you.

 

The python and anaconda,

And all of those mushrooms that kill,

The shark and alligator

Are agents of God’s will.

 

Volcano, flood, and tsunami,

And meteors come from the sky:

They all are God’s creations,

Even though they may horrify.

A Perspective on the Pawleys Island Case

It was with considerable dismay that I learned about the South Carolina Supreme Court decision in All Saints v. Campbell, the property dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and All Saints, Pawleys Island. In preparation for the weekly post on the news blog Pittsburgh Update last week, I asked attorney and Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh vice president Ken Stiles to read the opinion and provide some perspective on it. As it happened, Ken provided more perspective than Pittsburgh Update could use, so I asked him if I could post his thoughts on my own blog. He graciously agreed, and I hope that his remarks, now somewhat expanded, will help put the decision into perspective. (Readers who have not seen it should also see Nick Knisely’s post on The Lead concerning the decision.)

On September 18, 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled against the Diocese of South Carolina and The Episcopal Church to allow the All Saints, Waccamaw (Pawleys Island), to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church and join Rwanda’s Anglican Mission in America (AMiA, now Anglican Mission in the Americas) with its property. The Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling. This matter had been it litigation since 2000, when the diocese filled court papers claiming a trust interest in the parish’s property. In 2004, the parish vestry voted 9 to 1 to leave The Episcopal Church and join the AMiA.

The Supreme Court decision is a rare loss for The Episcopal Church in property litigation, but one has to look behind the immediate outcome to get a better sense of what this decision is and is not. The two issues of interest here are the Court’s treatment of the Dennis Canon and the cavalier way it approved the disassociation with The Episcopal Church.

The negation of the Dennis Canon is not as shocking as it seems. While all Episcopal Church parishes are assumed to have a trust relationship with their dioceses (and The Episcopal Church), the diocesan trust here was rendered null and void in 1903, when the Diocese of South Carolina signed a quitclaim deed giving any property interest the diocese had to the parish. (At issue was a question about the validity of the parish’s incorporation.) It is sometimes overlooked that the Dennis Canon did not and could not create a trust where none had existed before. The underlying assumption of the Dennis Canon is that there is always a trust relationship between a parish and the diocese dating from the establishment of the parish. To date, state courts have agreed with this. In this case, the diocese had given up its trust rights, so that there was nothing for the Dennis Canon to attach to.

The more troublesome aspect of this case is the Court’s holding that the parish had legally terminated its relationship with the diocese and The Episcopal Church:

Turning to the 2005 Action [in which a vestry loyal to The Episcopal Church sued for control of the parish], we find that the trial court applied the deference approach, determined that the congregation was part of a hierarchical organization, and deferred to the Diocese’s ecclesiastical authority’s determination that members of the minority vestry were the true officers of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Inc. We disagree.

First, the Court held that the deference approach was no longer allowed in South Carolina. Instead, it applied the “neutral principles of law” test. Both approaches are allowed by the United States Supreme Court.

Church disputes that are resolved under the neutral principles of law approach do not turn on the single question of whether a church is congregational or hierarchical. Rather, the neutral principles of law approach permits the application of property, corporate, and other forms of law to church disputes. …

The 2005 case turns on a determination of whether the Articles of Amendment approved by the members of All Saints Waccamaw, Inc. on January 8, 2004 were adopted in compliance with the South Carolina Non-Profit Act. See S.C. Code Ann. § 33-31-1001, et. seq. We find that the Articles of Amendment were lawfully adopted and effectively severed the corporation’s legal ties to the ECUSA and the Diocese. Therefore, we find that the members of the majority vestry are the true officers of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Inc. …

Pursuant to the South Carolina Non-Profit Act, a religious corporation may amend its Articles of Incorporation to add or change a provision permitted in the articles or delete a provision not required in the articles. … Amendment to a corporation’s articles, to be adopted, must be approved by (1) the board of directors, (2) the members “by two-thirds of the votes cast or a majority of the voting power, whichever is less,” and (3) any person whose approval is required by the Articles of Incorporation. … The passage of the Articles of Amendment approved by the congregation on January 8, 2004 complied with all three of these requirements. …

Finally, nothing in the All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Inc. by-laws or the Constitutions and Canons of the ECUSA or Diocese requires third-party approval for amendments to the congregation’s corporate charter, therefore the congregation’s adoption of the Articles of Amendment complied with the requirements of S.C. Code Ann. § 33-31-1003(a)(3). The statutory provisions pertaining to a religious corporation’s amendment of its corporate charter were amended in 1994 so as to add the option of third-party approval. See 1994 S.C. Acts 384. There is no evidence in the record that, since that time, the Diocese has ever attempted to gain approval power over amendments to the All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Inc. corporate charter.

S.C. Code Ann. § 33-31-1003(a)(3) refers to S.C. Code Ann. § 33-31-1030, “Approval of the articles of incorporation and bylaws by third persons”:

The articles of only a religious corporation or public benefit corporation may require an amendment to the articles or bylaws to be approved in writing by a specified person or persons other than the board. The article provision may be amended only with the approval in writing of such person.

The Court is saying here that, since the diocese did not require the parish to add the “third-party approval” language to the parish charter after 1994, the parish was free to change its charter in any way it wanted.

This conclusion of the Court is troublesome because nowhere in the opinion was the accession clause of the diocesan constitution (see Article I) mentioned or explanation given as to why it did not apply to this case. If an accession clause had been found present and effective, the actions of the parish, even if they had been unanimous, would have been beyond their authority and therefore of no effect. Moreover, although it is difficult to do a complete analysis of the case in the absence of the corporate charter of All Saints—the charter does not seem to be on the Web—the Diocese of South Carolina’s Canon XXX, Section 1 (see canons here), would seem to prohibit what the Supreme Court of South Carolina has allowed:

It shall not be lawful for any Vestry, Trustees or other body authorized by laws of any State or Territory to hold property for any Diocese, Parish or Congregation, to encumber or alienate any dedicated and consecrated Church or Chapel, or any Church or Chapel which has been used solely for Divine Service, belonging to the Parish, Mission or Congregation which they represent, without the previous consent of the Bishop, acting with the advice and consent of the Standing Committee of the Diocese.

It would seem that the court is saying that the only document that need be considered is the parish charter; the diocesan constitution and canons count for naught. The failure of the South Carolina Supreme Court to address this issue is both surprising and distressing.

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Note: Readers who want more insight into the case, may wish to read the trial court opinion. (Warning: this is a large file. It is, however, searchable.)

Why No Anglican Covenant: Part 2

This is another of a series of posts on the proposed Anglican covenant. Earlier posts include “No Anglican Covenant” and “Why No Anglican Covenant: Part 1.” These posts are being presented in no particular order.

There is much to be said about what is in the Ridley Cambridge Draft proposed as an Anglican covenant. Too little attention has been paid to what is not in the draft, however. In this essay, I want to discuss an important provision that is missing.

We have been told repeatedly that members of the Anglican Communion must observe the three moratoria first articulated in the Windsor Report (see paragraphs 134, 144, and 155) and reiterated by the primates. Despite protestations that the current conflicts are not about sex, however, only the moratoria involving homosexual persons seem to be of significant interest to the elements of the Communion upset with The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Neither the primates generally nor the Archbishop of Canterbury in particular have condemned border crossings with conviction. They surely have done nothing to stop them. Primates who have violated provincial boundaries or have countenanced such incursions by their bishops have been swift to justify such activity as unimportant when considered beside the blessing of same-sex unions or the consecration of partnered gay bishops. They view incursions as necessary to provide pastoral care for supposedly persecuted “orthodox” Anglicans, despite the fact that incursions violate longstanding Anglican tradition.

It is curious that “orthodox” elements of the Communion continue to advocate the three moratoria while conspicuously ignoring ongoing (and expanding) incursions. It is also curious that the proposed covenant, while requiring churches to do and to believe all manner of things, is silent on the matter of not messing in the affairs of sister Communion churches. Perhaps that is because the purpose of the covenant is to mess in the affairs of other churches.

Before considering why overlapping jurisdictions are a bad idea, I want to make some general observations about the concept of episcopal jurisdiction. The situation we see today is more complicated than that of the fourth century, when the Council of Nicaea dealt with the matter. There is no longer a universal (or nearly universal) Church. In Pittsburgh, for example, churches are overseen by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, and Episcopal bishops, not to mention whatever kind of bishop Bob Duncan might be. Overlapping jurisdictions are a fact of life almost everywhere, but the Anglican Communion has traditionally invoked Nicaea Canon 8 as requiring unique jurisdiction insofar as Anglican Communion bishops are concerned. Although there is not a single, unified Anglican Church, Communion churches act, at least in this regard, as though there were—until recently, at any rate.

Why is it important that this should be so? There are, I think, at least three reasons. First, having parishes of multiple Anglican churches in the same geographical area is confusing to people who might want to attend them, not to mention journalists who might need to report about them. Whereas Lutherans or Baptists may be used to paying close attention to the exact denominational flavor of a church carrying their generic designation, Anglicans are not. Of course, people could learn to live with overlapping jurisdictions, but, as one living in two versions of the “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh,” I can attest that such a situation is indeed uncomfortable and confusing to many, especially to people shopping for a church.

In fact, another problem with overlapping Anglican jurisdictions is that it puts Anglican Communion churches in competition with one another for parishioners. If the overlapping dioceses are themselves already in conflict with one another—as they are in northern Virginia, for example—the competition is likely to exacerbate existing tensions and make it increasingly difficult for the churches to coöperate in mission of any sort, which, one might argue, is the whole point of the Anglican Communion. The close juxtaposition of Anglican parishes of mutually hostile dioceses has more insidious consequences, however. First, it encourages the demonization of those Christians in the other jurisdiction. (The Pittsburgh experience could be cited here as well, at least with respect to the parishes that left the Episcopal diocese for the Southern Cone.) Also, it sends the message that Anglicanism is a narrow, rather than a broad, Christian tradition and that, whether locally or when traveling abroad, it is important to find the right flavor of Anglican houses of worship. In other words, overlapping Anglican jurisdictions drive Anglicans further apart.

Finally, overlapping jurisdictions give reason to question the whole notion of an Anglican Communion. They make it abundantly clear that the Communion is not a unified church, that its pretensions to being the “third largest Christian grouping” or some such is so much puffery, and that the Communion cannot credibly speak with one voice to the world at large. In the present circumstances, the Anglican Communion seems to be a group of competitors vying for adherents, rather than a fellowship of coöperating, geographically localized Christian churches. Worse still, it acts like a den of pirates intent on poaching souls and absconding with property. One might think that an Anglican covenant should ban overlapping jurisdictions in order to avoid such embarrassing activities.

The Anglican covenant is presumably meant to offer both a carrot and a stick to potential signatories. From the standpoint of The Episcopal Church, however, it appears that no one remembered to include the carrot. If The Episcopal Church cannot even be granted a restoration of its exclusive franchise within its ostensible borders, signing on to the covenant can only be seen as the self-flagellatory act of an organization lacking a clear self-image and simple self-respect.

That said, I do not personally care if the Church of Nigeria, Uganda, or even England plants churches on our shores. In The Episcopal Church, we are used to having parishes with different worship styles and theological viewpoints check by jowl in any given diocese. I believe this acceptance of diversity is both healthy and, to many people, attractive in an ecclesiastical landscape often hostile to ideas different from those articulated in one’s own church. Episcopalians should not fear competition from intolerant “Anglican” churches sponsored by foreign provinces.

It is difficult not to believe that the churches of the Anglican Communion are too culturally and theologically diverse ever to agree on some issues, even if one takes the broadest possible view of Anglican tolerance. The Anglican Communion should therefore be concentrating on mission, not dogma. It is time to let individual Anglican churches try to be the best that they can be, give up pretensions to being a rival to the Roman Catholic Church, admit that the Archbishop of Canterbury is just the Archbishop of Canterbury (and technically, not even the head of the Church of England), and forget about adopting an Anglican covenant.

Where Has My Opinion Gone?

I have been preparing a blog post on the recent Supreme Court ruling in South Carolina (All Saints v. Campbell). I discovered this morning, however, that the opinion had seemingly disappeared from the South Carolina Judicial Department Web site. A couple of telephone calls to South Carolina helped me determine that a simple technical error was responsible for the disappearance, rather than, for example, some ACNA or Episcopal Church plot. The opinion was originally published at http://sccourts.org/opinions/displayOpinion.cfm?caseNo=29724. This morning, that page is essentially blank. The case number of the litigation is actually 26724, not 29724. The opinion can now be found in its proper place at http://sccourts.org/opinions/displayOpinion.cfm?caseNo=26724.

I hope that bloggers and others who may have cited the opinion will see this post and change the links on their Web sites.

Goodbye, Mary Travers

Mary Travers, the “Mary” of Peter, Paul & Mary, died Wednesday from complications of treatment for leukemia. She was 72.

When I heard the news on the car radio the night of Mary Travers’ death, it was hard for me to believe that PP&M was no more. I first heard their wonderful music when I was in high school, and I have listened to their songs with varying regularity ever since. I own more of their albums than those of any other singer or singing group. I bought them over a long period; PP&M had a long run. Happily, some of those albums are products of a reunion that took place after what seemed like the breakup of the group in 1970. (Beatles fans, eat your heart out.)

I loved Peter, Paul & Mary. I loved their clean-cut, yet slightly funky look. I loved their evident joy in singing together, as well as their passion both for their music and its often provocative message. I loved their stage presence. Most of all, I loved their sound, polished and harmonious—the kind of sound that made a choral singer like me melt (and want to sing along). I wasn’t actually in love with Mary, but one could not but be struck by her long, straight blond hair and what others have called her drop-dead gorgeous looks.

“Peter, Paul & Mary” was one of the first popular LPs I ever bought. (I might have bought the Kingston Trio’s first album before I discovered PP&M.) I was introduced to PP&M by the first girl I ever dated. She was a bit older than I, and, although we never really became an item, the association of a first date and my introduction to PP&M was certainly a pleasant one. For many years, I eagerly purchased every album the group released. I also bought Mary’s first solo album, which was lovely, but which lacked the appeal of PP&M. My post-reunion collection of CDs is incomplete, but I may have to change that.

I am not fond of pop concerts, and I have attended few of them. Ticket prices are high, and getting close to the stage is often impossible. There are usually too many people at such events, and the sound is invariably inferior to the recorded sound one is used to listening to. Nonetheless, I attended two PP&M concerts years apart, and I don’t regret paying for tickets that put me near the stage. PP&M were exciting to watch, as well as to listen to. I cherish the thrill of experiencing the group live.

When I was introduced to PP&M, I described myself as a political conservative. Although the politics of the group were for many years different from my own, I could not help but listen to their music and at least think about their lyrics. (One could always understand the lyrics, of course, a feature not universal in the popular music universe.) And their presence at events such as the 1963 March on Washington made a powerful statement. In the end, I’m not sure that I can say that PP&M converted me to liberalism, but they may have had something to do with it. Music, after all, calls forth a powerful emotional response. (I have often thought that unions had the success they did because they had better songs than the corporations they struggled against.)

Of course, Peter, Paul & Mary required Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, in addition to Mary Travers. It is difficult not to think of the bronze-toned voice of Mary Travers as the glue that held their sound together and was, in large measure, responsible for the success of the group. I am bemused by the Kingston Trio’s ability to swap personnel over the years and remain the “Kingston Trio.” It is difficult to imagine PP&M without Peter Yarrow or Paul Stookey. It is impossible to imagine the group without Mary Travers.

With the death of Mary Travers, I feel a very personal, very emotional loss. I thank God that she touched my life. In a small way, I feel what her friends and fellow singers have had to say (I have made minor changes in capitalization):

I have no idea what it will be like to have no Mary in my world, in my life, or on stage to sing with. But I do know there will always be a hole in my heart, a place where she will always exist that will never be filled by any other person. However painful her passing is, I am forever grateful for Mary and her place in my life.

— Peter Yarrow

I am deadened and heartsick beyond words to consider a life without Mary Travers and honored beyond my wildest dreams to have shared her spirit and her career.

— Noel Paul Stookey

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In lieu of flowers, the family has suggested a contribution to the Mary Travers Healthcare Fund at Danbury (Conn.) Hospital.

Album art courtesy Rhino Records.

Illusion and Reality

We are surrounded by media of all sorts, and our artificial creations sometimes play tricks on us, momentarily confusing us about what is real and what isn’t. I offer three examples, but I don’t think these stories have any morals or cosmic significance.

1. While I was in the U.S. Army Pacific Band many years ago, I remember passing by a narrow room with an open door and seeing a fellow bandsman sitting in a chair that faced the doorway reading a copy of Sports Illustrated. The magazine’s cover had what must have been a life-sized picture of a football player’s helmeted head. Because the soldier was holding the magazine in front of his face with both hands, it appeared that the football player’s head was actually his. I did a double take as I walked by. I wonder how many people have had similar experiences.

2. When I’m seated in from of my computer, my cats are often somewhere nearby. More often than not, Eve, my Bombay, is lying atop my monitor. The big Sony CRT provides a warm place to sleep. If not there, she is usually climbing down from her perch to climb up on my shoulder. Ezekiel, my big tabby, can be almost anywhere, though a favorite spot seems to be lying on the papers in front of me on my desk—that is, on the papers I’m working with. Zeke is a classic brown tabby that looks a lot like millions of other tabbys. On the wall to my left, above a television, is my current calendar. This year it’s a cat calendar. (There have been exceptions, but the calendar usually sports either cats or trains.) The cat for September is a tabby that could be Zeke’s twin. The cat is sitting on its haunches and looking at the camera. Except for its size, the calendar photo looks like a real Zeke, and I find that, from time to time, I get the feeling that Zeke is above the TV looking at me. I turn my head left only to realize that “Zeke” is just an illusion.

3. A somewhat different illusion presented itself the other day. My church choir recently sang the Fauré requiem, and we are now rehearsing the Duruflé requiem. Most choir members, including myself, have a CD containing the two works. I have been listening to the CD in the car. On this particular day, I took my CD out to the car, as I had taken it inside to listen to the Duruflé and sing along with my score. I started the car and immediately heard the Fauré coming from the sound system, though the tone quality was rather poor. Was there something wrong with the CD? I then realized I had the CD on the seat next to me, or so I thought. I opened the jewel box, and, sure enough, the disk was in it. When pushing the eject button on the sound system produced no result, I realized what had happened. When I had parked the car, I had been listening to a West Virginia radio station, the reception for which in Pittsburgh is spotty. West Virginia Public Radio just happened to be playing the Fauré requiem when I started the car, and the tone quality was poor because reception was poor where the car was parked. I hadn’t heard the CD playing at all.

The Politics of Ignorance

Like many Americans, I was appalled by the crazed, right-wing reaction to the prospect of the President’s addressing school children. From the beginning, it was clear to most people that Mr. Obama’s address was simply going to be a pep talk, telling students to work hard, stay in school, etc., etc. It was, in other words, going to be a talk about what are usually considered “family values.” To some parents, mostly evangelical Christian Republicans who listen to talk radio rather too much, the President’s pep talk was really satanic propaganda designed to turn ordinary children into robots supporting Mr. Obama’s “socialist agenda.” School administrators were intimidated. Many schools decided not to air the speech or to allow parents to have their children opt out of being subjected to the President’s words. In the end, not even releasing the speech a day in advance mollified large numbers of irate parents or terrified school administrators.

With this incident behind us, I would like to make a few observations. First, the speech was not anything its detractors suggested it would be. It was encouraging, inspiring, and nonpartisan. (You can read the full text here.)

Second, it is discouraging that some Americans tried to impose a kind of prior restraint on a speech by the U.S. President. Can we not give Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt and let him give his talk, exercising our right afterward to criticize him if he misuses his office? Has this President, who has been in office less than a year, behaved so outrageously that we must censor his words from our children? Have we no respect for, if not the President, then for the office he holds? The answer to this last question, at least for some element of the citizenry, is clearly no. It is not a coincidence that Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina (also not a coincidence) accused the President of the United States of lying in the middle of his joint address to the Congress.

When I first began thinking about writing this post, the point I am about to make seemed in the realm of political satire—certainly sarcastic and perhaps just a bit over the top. After listening to an interview with author Max Blumenthal yesterday, I’m not so sure. Blumenthal is the author of the new book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, and he was interviewed on Fresh Air by Terry Gross. Introducing her guest, the host said, “The Right is trying to de-legitimize the Obama presidency according to my guest, journalist Max Blumenthal.” The interview was chilling. Listen to it all on the NPR Web site here.

Now on to point three. Republicans may be mean-spirited demagogues who confuse the American political arena with the ancient Roman Colosseum, but they know where their interests lie. Their success depends on ignorance and misinformation. It is surely not in their interest for children to study hard, absorb the lessons of history, think for themselves, and learn how to distinguish fantasy from reality. In other words, for the Republican Right—there are, of course, no longer any Republican moderates or liberals—the President’s speech was indeed subversive.

God preserve us!

Why No Anglican Covenant: Part 1

I have been slow to deliver on my promise to elaborate on my opposition to an Anglican covenant made in my August 6, 2009 post “No Anglican Covenant.” Readers may consider this a first installment of my fulfillment of that promise.

I want to begin by considering how the notion of an Anglican covenant has been promoted and the actual nature of the covenant drafts that have been proposed. Everyone else seems to capitalize “covenant” in the phrase “Anglican Covenant,” by the way. I will do so when it makes sense to talk about the Anglican Covenant. We are not there yet.

Not just any agreement among churches of the Anglican Communion could properly be called a covenant. In fact, the sort of agreement I advocated in “The Covenant We Do Need” is not so much a covenant as it is an administrative agreement about the mechanics of how we will do certain (largely non-controversial) things. I will return to the idea below.

The Ridley Cambridge Draft, as well as the drafts that preceded it, are properly called “covenants,” not because of anything they have in common with agreements between God and Noah or between God and Abraham, but because of their similarity to so-called “restrictive covenants” common in the real estate realm. They attempt to constrain the actions of signatories, and they specify, at least in general terms, a mechanism to enforce the intended constraints.

The covenant—I will now limit my remarks to the draft currently before us, including its controversial Section Four—is a classic camelid product of a committee. It is part confession of faith, part mission statement, part constitution, and, of course, part restrictive covenant. This is perfectly consistent with the recommendations of the Windsor Report, itself a product of a committee. (See especially the section titled “Canon Law and Covenant,” which begins at paragraph 113.)

Like the real estate mechanism, the Anglican covenant is inwardly focused: it is not about declaring to the world what Anglicans believe or do, but about restricting internal diversity and enforcing doctrinal uniformity among Anglican churches. One of its purposes is to tell the Anglican churches what they must believe. Episcopalians should have no illusions about this. The parts of the Ridley Cambridge Draft that are least restrictive-covenant-like are mostly—and I emphasize mostly—provisions of the apple-pie-and-motherhood variety, sugar coating to divert readers from the poison pill within.

A fundamental problem with the Anglican covenant is its dishonesty. While claiming to preserve the essence of the Anglican Communion, it is instead radically altering it. As I said in “Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection,”

In fact, what [Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan] Williams and other primates have been doing is portraying themselves as conservatives, preservers of the Anglican status quo. In reality, they are revolutionaries, trying to hoodwink the naïve and the over-courteous into abandoning the fellowship that has been the Anglican Communion in favor of a radical centralization intended to enforce doctrinal uniformity. This is the underlying purpose of the Anglican covenant. Terms such as “mutual responsibility” are thrown about by the archbishop as a kind of spiritual blackmail intended to intimidate churches such as our own into giving up their birthright of ecclesiastical autonomy. Williams derisively dismisses “mere federation” as though it were not what the Communion has been these many years.

A similar view is expressed in the excellent analysis provided by the Modern Churchpeople’s Union paper “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future: MCU’s reply to Drs Williams and Wright”:

Yet [Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan] Williams and [Bishop of Durham N.T.] Wright both write as though this authority [to impose a particular view—even a majority view—on the whole Communion] was already there, already competent to discipline the Americans for disobeying instructions. We must therefore ask why these two senior clergy, who know full well that Anglicanism does not have central authorities with that authority, condemn the Americans on the basis that it does. It is difficult to avoid the obvious conclusion: that (perhaps without realising it) they are in the process of creating an authoritarian centralised system, and are identifying themselves with it. The Americans are to blame for the controversy only from the perspective of those claiming more authority than they have.

Serious dishonesty at the Anglican Communion level is evident in the Windsor Report, which either creates or propagates myths about the relationships between Anglican churches. No one doubts that churches of the Communion are, in some sense, interdependent. They consult with one another on various issues, and they coöperate in such projects as delivering disaster relief. The Virginia Report, prepared in 1997 for the 1998 Lambeth Conference, spoke of autonomy and interdependence this way:

3.28 In the development of the Anglican Communion there is no legislative authority above the Provincial level. (How far this is a result of the Royal Supremacy in the Church of England is a matter for reflection. Other historical factors in other Provinces have also affected the question of autonomy and interdependence.) There has been an insistence upon the autonomy of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. However, while autonomy entails the legal and juridical right of each Province to govern its way of life, in practice autonomy has never been the sole criterion for understanding the relation of Provinces to one another. There has generally been an implicit understanding of belonging together and interdependence. The life of the Communion is held together in the creative tension of Provincial autonomy and interdependence. There are some signs that the Provinces are coming to a greater realisation that they need each other's spiritual, intellectual and material resources in order to fulfill their task of mission. Each Province has something distinctive to offer the others, and needs them in turn to be able to witness to Christ effectively in its own context. Questions are asked about whether we can go on as a world Communion with morally authoritative, but not juridically binding, decision-making structures at the international level. A further question is the relationship between the autonomy of a Province and the theological importance of a diocese which is reckoned to be the basic unit of Anglicanism.

The Virginia Report never became the holy writ that the Windsor Report has become. Its authors acknowledge provincial autonomy as real independence, but they long for stronger bonds of obligation among the churches. Interestingly, the chair of the group that produced the Windsor Report, Archbishop Robert Eames, played the same role in writing the Virginia Report. In the Windsor Report, the description of provincial autonomy becomes the following:

73. Although there is a sense in which the Church of England’s break with Rome in the sixteenth century was an assertion of that Church’s ‘autonomy’, in more recent times the concept of ‘provincial autonomy’ in Anglican thinking was developed in its early twentieth century context to signify ‘independence from the control of the British Crown’. The established Church of England of the Reformation was, and remains, subject to the royal supremacy, and many overseas Anglican churches at one time or other had been similarly subject; speaking of their ‘autonomy’ came to refer to their disengagement from that supremacy.

The seeds of this argument can be found in the Virginia Report, of course. The Windsor Report then goes on to make a kind of Orwellian argument that autonomy is subjection:

76. A body is thus, in this sense, ‘autonomous’ only in relation to others: autonomy exists in a relation with a wider community or system of which the autonomous entity forms part. The word ‘autonomous’ in this sense actually implies not an isolated individualism, but the idea of being free to determine one’s own life within a wider obligation to others. The key idea is autonomy-in-communion, that is, freedom held within interdependence.

The Windsor Report uses the argument that autonomy is not autonomy as justification for an enforced accountability among Anglican churches, put forward as normative. Here is what Dr. Joan Gundersen, church historian and General Convention deputy from the Diocese of Pittsburgh recently said about paragraph 73 of the Windsor Report in a post on the House of Bishops and Deputies Mailing List (I quote Dr. Gundersen with her permission):

My problem is that this statement is at odds with the actual historical development of a number of provinces in the Anglican Communion. First of all, the communion had ALREADY been formed by a group of national churches that included those that saw themselves as truly “independent” of each other before the second British empire began breaking up. (The first empire, of course, took a beating in the late 18th century.) Furthermore the Anglican Communion includes a number of provinces that NEVER were part of the British empire and thus this entire statement is alien to their understanding of the relationship between their church and the rest of the communion. Last time I looked Japan, Mexico, Rwanda, the Congo, the Philippines, the Southern Cone, Korea, and Brazil had not been part of the British Empire. A majority of the countries in two regional provinces (Central America and West Africa) were not part of the British empire. There are other regional provinces where specific countries included in the province were not part of the British Empire (such as Liberia in W. Africa).

If statement number 73 is removed for its historical incorrectness, the entire chain of logic in the Windsor Report leading to the idea that provincial autonomy still means subordination to the communion falls apart.

We are being led to think that Anglican churches are not giving up their independence because they are not now independent anyway. This is simply not true. That our fellow Anglicans are trying to hoodwink us into accepting this historical revisionism is sufficient reason to reject the whole enterprise of developing a covenant as a bad idea and unholy enterprise.

Diversity within the Communion should actually be seen as a strength, rather than a weakness. The Virginia Report acknowledges this on one hand—“[e]ach Province has something distinctive to offer the others, and needs them in turn to be able to witness to Christ effectively in its own context”—and then immediately speculates whether the Communion can maintain its moral authority without enforcing a uniform orthodoxy. There is, I think, a certain amount of papal envy among Anglican primates, including the present Archbishop of Canterbury. The world does not need another Roman Catholic Church, however. We have one already, and most Episcopalians believe that is already one too many.

Whereas it is true that various Lambeth Conference resolutions are suggestive of strong ties among provinces and a desire for even stronger ones, I must point out that such resolutions are not binding and have never been binding on Communion churches. This fact seemed well understood until Lambeth 1998 I.10 became the Eleventh Commandment, another example of Anglican use of the Big Lie. Certainly, Episcopal bishops have no authority to bind their church to Lambeth Conference resolutions, nor should they without the restraining influence of priests, deacons, and, most especially, laypeople.

Institutionally, the Anglican Communion is a mess. It is more of a dysfunctional camel than even the proposed covenant itself, which could actually make things worse. (Frank Turner recently even went so far as to suggest that the Anglican Communion is more imaginary than real.) We now hear talk of the four so-called Instruments of Communion each having its own list of who is in and who is out of the Communion, and we hear serious talk of creating a two-track Communion, an idea that has the potential of giving us eight distinct lists of who is in and who is out. The proposed covenant, if adopted, will effectively overlay the current chaos with more confusing and competing mechanisms.

We should abandon the idea of an Anglican covenant and start asking more fundamental questions such as

1. What is the purpose of the Communion?
2. What mechanisms will advance the purpose of the Communion?
3. How can all orders, including the lay order, participate in Communion activities?
   
4. What does it mean to be in or out of the Communion?
5. How does a church join or leave the Communion?
6. What is to be done with the handful of isolated dioceses currently in the Communion?
   
7. Who is the leader of the Communion and what authority does that person have?
8. Should the leader of the Communion be chosen by the members of the Communion?
9. What obligations do churches have with respect to geographical boundaries?
10. What obligations do churches have to respect the ordinations and depositions of other churches?
11. Who speaks for the Communion and under what circumstances?
12. In particular, does it make sense for the Communion to engage in ecumenical talks when the churches of the Communion are not of one mind on any number of issues?
13. What is a fair way to finance Communion activities?
    

There are, no doubt, other important questions that we should ask. Our first order of business, however, should be to drop the idea of a covenant and to recognize that the diversity and messiness of the Anglican Communion are strengths to be celebrated, not weaknesses to be obliterated.

Adjectives Ending in ly

Yesterday, I finished writing an article on Lionel Deimel’s Farrago about adjectives ending in ly, that is adjectives that look like adverbs. I became interested in such words when I was made aware that “friendly” is an adjective (“the friendly neighbor”), but not an adverb (not “the neighbor greeted us friendly”). Using my imagination, and with the help of Google, I was able to identify about 150 adjectives ending in ly. Some of these words are also adverbs, e.g., “weekly.” Some, arguably, have no adverbial form, but authors disagree about which ones are in this category. (My favorite is “thistly.” It is difficult, though perhaps not impossible, to imagine a use for an adverbial form of this word.) Then there are words like “friendly,” which form admittedly rare adverbs by replacing ly with lily. Not everyone acknowledges that “friendlily” is a real word, but it is in dictionaries. One can certainly imagine uses for the word—“all the neighbors behaved friendlily”—but its use is easily avoided (e.g., “all the neighbors behaved in a friendly manner”).

Decide for yourself which adjectives ending in ly have useful adverbs ending in lily by reading “Odd Adjectives.”

Canadian Math

I read an Anglican Journal article the other day titled “Re-thinking how we do church.” (For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with it, I should point out that Anglican Journal is a publication of the Anglican Church of Canada.) The article is dated today, but was posted a few days ago. It is the usual jeremiad about declining church membership, high average age of churchgoing Anglicans, and the apparent contrasting success of more evangelical churches. The article is the first of a series about a “paradigm shift” supposedly taking place in the Canadian church.

The unusual thing about this story is its math. Things are bad enough without computing statistics wrong. According to Anglican Journal, Anglican Church of Canada membership declined from 1.3 million to 658,000 from 1961 to 2001. This is a lamentable decline, to be sure, but it is not the 53% decline mentioned in the article. One doesn’t even need a calculator to see that a 53% decline has not occurred. If there were a 50% decline, attendance in 2001 would be half of the 1961 attendance or 650,000. But the 2001 attendance was 58,000 more than that! In fact, the decline was just over 49% (i.e., [1,300,00 - 658,000]/1,300,000). Try as I might, I cannot figure out where the 53% figure comes from, even if I assume the figures presented were rounded but the calculations were made with more precise numbers. Of course, the article also reports “that the Anglican Church in Canada has lost more than half of its membership in the past 50 years,” but the period of 1961 to 2001 is only 40 years. Go figure!

The Anglican Journal article has more computational errors, however; it also offers statistics on the decline of membership of The Episcopal Church. We are told that, from 1965 to 2007, Episcopal Church membership dropped from 3.5 million to only 2.2 million. This decline is reported to be even higher, 55%. Again, notice that half of 3.5 million is 1.75 million, so Episcopal Church membership certainly declined less that 50%. In fact, assuming the numbers in this article are correct, the decline was just over 37% (i.e., [3,500,000 - 2,200,000]/3,500,000). There is quite a significant difference between 55% and 37%.

What is going on here? Do the values of integers in Canada fluctuate with the value of the Canadian dollar? Is math taught in Canada? (This may be unfair, as the article is reporting on the views of the Rev. Gary Nicolosi, who, we are told, is a “transplanted American.”) I have no idea, but the Rev. Mr. Nicolosi, the writer, or the editor—perhaps all three—need serious remedial mathematics education.

A Tale of Two Parking Lots

My friend and copyeditor Jane had an operation last week and seems to be facing a long hospital stay. This has given me much experience with the parking lot of UPMC St. Margaret. (Curiously, this hospital doesn’t have “Hospital” in its official name.) I hadn’t thought much about the functioning of its parking lot until yesterday.

Pittsburgh has had a lot of rain lately, and that day I drove to the hospital in a downpour. I couldn’t understand why the SUV in front of me was having such a hard time getting into the parking lot until I followed it up to the access gate. Normally, one presses a button on a machine that dispenses a card with a magnetic stripe and opens the gate. This time, the gate was raised, and repeatedly pressing the button had no effect. As I drove into the lot, the driver of the SUV, who was walking toward the hospital entrance, looked at me and shrugged. For a moment, I thought I might park free, but I did notice that the exit gate was not open. (Only later did it occur to me that I might have avoided the $3.00 parking fee by exiting through the parking lot entrance, assuming the gate was still raised.)

As I was leaving the hospital, I explained to the people at the information desk that I needed a card to get out of the parking lot, and one of the ladies there handed me one. In response to my asking why the card dispenser wasn’t working, I was told that it was because of the rain, an explanation that, in retrospect, was less than satisfactory. Was the dispenser unreliable in wet weather? Was the hospital helping drivers stay dry? (This seemed unlikely, as people would have to exit their vehicles eventually.) I was told that the dispenser doesn’t work when the gate is raised, which begged the question.

I took my card, inserted it into the machine in the lobby, along with $3.00, and received the card back, with my payment recorded on the magnetic stripe. At the parking lot exit, I inserted the card into another machine, which took the card and raised the gate.

Today, I began to wonder if all the parking lot machinery at St. Margaret was absolutely necessary. Parking at Mt. Lebanon’s St. Clair Hospital, for example, is somewhat simpler. Nothing is dispensed at the lot entrance. One pulls up to a gate, which then opens automatically to allow entry. Before leaving the hospital, one has to put $2.00 into a machine that dispenses a metal token. Inserting the token into a slot at the parking lot exit opens a gate to allow one’s vehicle to leave the lot.

In most respects, the St. Clair system seems better than that of St. Margaret. Less machinery is needed—no dispenser is required at the lot entrance, and the indoor machinery may be less complex. Moreover, the metal tokens are recycled, whereas the magnetic stripe cards are consumables. (They are obviously not reused, as they are time-stamped when dispensed.) Visitors don’t have to worry about carrying anything around the hospital related to parking until they are ready to leave.

Are there any advantages to the system at St. Margaret? Potentially, there are two. Because the cards are time-stamped—I assume the entry time is encoded on the magnetic stripe as well as printed on the card—the hospital can, in principle, analyze parking lot usage not only in the aggregate but also down to the behavior of individual users. Additionally, parking can be discounted. Because I drove Jane to the hospital for her operation, I was entitled to a $2.00 discount on parking that day, a discount implemented by writing on the magnetic stripe in the surgical waiting room.

Do the “advantages” of the St. Margaret system really matter? Do they justify the more expensive system than that of St. Clair? Does someone at St. Margaret really analyze the comings and goings of individual parking lot users, even thought the parking charge is independent of the time spent in the lot? Is it really important that surgical patients get a 67% discount, rather than free parking on the day of their operation? I doubt it.

Lutherans Vote YES!

The Evangelical Lutheran Church just voted to allow partnered gay clergy. In particular, the Lutherans voted to adopt the following (or something very close to it):

RESOLVED, that the ELCA commit itself to finding a way for people in such publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders of this church.

The vote was approximately 60% for.

Catching Up on Things Episcopal

Due to the press of other obligation, I’ve not gotten around to making some of the posts I have been meaning to write. My post “No Anglican Covenant” really requires some follow-up explaining why I believe an Anglican covenant is a bad idea in principle. Look for some activity on this front soon.

While I was thinking about the Anglican covenant, Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina published his address to the clergy of his diocese. This definitely requires a response. Recall that, soon after Lawrence was elected the first time, I wrote an essay opposing his consecration. I suggested that Lawrence would subvert The Episcopal Church. After a failed attempt to achieve the required consents, he was elected a second time by his diocese. This time he reassured Episcopalians in more convincing words that he would not be a subversive bishop. His reassurances were sufficient to guarantee his consecration. One now has to question the sincerity of Lawrence’s declarations of loyalty to his church. He his sounding a lot like Bob Duncan in September 2003, and we know how that ended!

Various diversions have kept me from fully engaging either of the foregoing projects, not the least of which was my visit to the emergency room of St. Clair Hospital because I was experiencing chest pains. Happily, that turned up only a minor problem from a medical standpoint, and my life is back to what passes for normal.

Another diversion has been more creative. I just finished a poem titled “I Was a Proud Southern Christian,” an autobiographical piece about my spiritual odyssey. (Notice the tense of the verb in the title.) Anyway, the poem may be of interest to Episcopalian readers. And as long as I’m plugging a poem, I should mention another church-related poem from earlier in the summer. Christopher Wilkins, a former vice president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh and very good friend, was ordained in June. For the occasion, I wrote “Christopher Becomes a Deacon.” Christopher escaped a crazy diocese and joined a sane one, one in which a non-conservative could be ordained. Of course, the Diocese of Pittsburgh is now returning to sanity. Thanks be to God.

Anyway, stay tuned for more essays on things Episcopal. Meanwhile, look for the “No Anglican Covenant” logo, which is now gracing a number of blogs. Does your blog need one?

No Anglican Covenant

I have never thought that an Anglican covenant was a good idea. Although some ground rules about how Anglican churches should behave toward one another would be welcome—see “The Covenant We Do Need”—“covenant” is really too grandiose a term for such an agreement.

In reality, the push for a covenant is about stopping theological development within the Anglican world and, should progress rear its ugly head, to punish the purveyors of it. Of course, The Episcopal Church is the most obvious candidate for discipline, but other sacrificial lambs await on the horizon.

Reading, thinking about, and, finally, writing about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s latest words concerning our Anglican future has convinced me that (1) Rowan Williams has an exulted sense of purpose that is a menace to Anglicanism, and (2) nothing good can possibly come of the Anglican covenant effort. Its potential for mischief, on the other hand, is limitless. As I said in “Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection”:

In fact, what Williams and other primates have been doing is portraying themselves as conservatives, preservers of the Anglican status quo. In reality, they are revolutionaries, trying to hoodwink the naïve and the over-courteous into abandoning the fellowship that has been the Anglican Communion in favor of a radical centralization intended to enforce doctrinal uniformity. This is the underlying purpose of the Anglican Covenant. Terms such as “mutual responsibility” are thrown about by the archbishop as a kind of spiritual blackmail intended to intimidate churches such as our own into giving up their birthright of ecclesiastical autonomy. Williams derisively dismisses “mere federation” as though it were not what the Communion has been these many years.

I am hopeful that the recent General Convention resolutions and what may be a new militancy within the Church of England will help make approval of any covenant by Western churches less likely than it had seemed only a few weeks ago.

Having spent far too much time writing my response to Archbishop Rowan Williams, I am not yet ready to write the definitive denunciation of the Anglican covenant process. I am, however, ready to suggest that Episcopalians and other moderate and progressive Anglicans must begin now a campaign against any Anglican covenant, lest our churches approve whatever comes along out of simple but misguided Anglican civility.

As a tool for the resistance, I offer the anti-covenant logo displayed above. I do not claim to be a graphic artist, and therefore realize that others may be able to devise a more exciting logo for the campaign. There is, however, something to be said for simplicity.

I invite others to use the No Anglican Covenant logo to show your opposition to the dangerous innovation that is the Anglican covenant. Because I realize that my graphic may not be suitable for all occasions, I offer a larger version of it here, from which you can generate your own appropriately sized graphic for the Web or for paper documents.

Update, 10/8/2010: For additional versions of the No Anglican Covenant logo and information about using it in other contexts, click here.

Deconstructing Rowan

When I read Rowan Williams’ “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future” (CCAF) at the beginning of the week—it is now Friday—it pushed a lot of my hot buttons. I have been working fitfully all week trying to tease apart the content of the archbishop’s reflection and to express some of the thoughts it has inspired. By now, of course, everyone may be weary of reading analyses of CCAF.

Weary or not, I now offer my own deconstruction of CCAF and thoughts about what the Archbishop has said and where his thinking is tending. You can read my essay, “Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection” on Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. Although my own analysis comes late to the party, I hope it will be found worth reading. It is, of course, written by an unabashed Episcopalian who admittedly is finding both the archbishop and the Anglican Communion a bit tiresome.

Here are a few random thoughts from “Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection” that are discussed at greater length there:

1. The archbishop is showing signs of flexibility, probably because he is afraid of how things will play out. He needs to expand his horizons even more.
2. Rowan Williams and others promoting an Anglican covenant are revolutionaries, not preservers of the Anglican Communion. They have portrayed the Communion as being the way they would like it to be, not as it has been.
3. The archbishop has conflated the issues of same-sex unions and gay bishops. The issues are separable and should be dealt with individually.
4. Heterosexual marriage isn’t threatened by same-sex unions. The Church has invested more significance in marriage than it deserves.
5. The archbishop apparently knows nothing about risk assessment or change management.

Somewhat arrogantly, perhaps, I have placed my latest essay in the Church Resources section of my Web site. I considered placing in under Commentary, but I am hoping that it may have some enduring value as a “resource.” Time will tell. In any case, let me make a special invitation to readers to comment on my essay. If appropriate, I will discuss any comments I receive here. Click on “Send comments here,” at the left to offer your thoughts.

What D025 Has Done

Ann Rodgers wrote a story a couple of days ago for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headlined “Episcopal gay bishops decision confounds activists.” The story, of course, was about General Convention Resolution D025, which has now been passed in its final form by both houses. (The margin of victory was approximately 2–1 among bishops, clergy, and laity.) The resolution reads as follows:

Commitment and Witness to Anglican Communion

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm the continued participation of The Episcopal Church as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion; give thanks for the work of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 2008; reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention encourage dioceses, congregations, and members of The Episcopal Church to participate to the fullest extent possible in the many instruments, networks and relationships of the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion and pledge to participate fully in the Inter-Anglican Budget; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm the value of “listening to the experience of homosexual persons,” as called for by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988, and 1998, and acknowledge that through our own listening the General Convention has come to recognize that the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church includes same-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships “characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God” (2000-D039); and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention recognize that gay and lesbian persons who are part of such relationships have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and are currently doing so in our midst; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, and that God’s call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience disagree about some of these matters.

I’m not sure this resolution has “confounded” any church “activists.” I do not feel confounded personally. Certainly, people are spinning the passage of D025 to see what they want to see, but I doubt that many are missing, in their heart of hearts, the real message of D025.

No doubt I will be accused of spin as well, but I want to take a crack at evaluating the significance of D025.

Moratorium

The big concern about D025 on both sides of the Atlantic seems to be with The Episcopal Church’s moratorium on gay bishops. Analysis here is best begun with a few questions and answers.

Q. Is there now a moratorium in The Episcopal Church on the consecration of gay bishops?

A. No.

Q. Was there ever such a moratorium?

A. No.

Q. Were the canons regarding the ordination of gays changed in 2006?

A. No.

Q. Were the canons regarding the ordination of gays changed in 2009?

A. No.

Q. Has anything changed?

A. Yes, definitely.

Q. Will there soon be more gay bishops in The Episcopal Church?

A. Maybe, maybe not. There surely will be eventually.

Resolution B033, passed at the end of the 2006 General Convention—see my 2006 essay “Is the Episcopal Church About to Surrender?”—“call[ed] upon” those responsible for approving the consecration of a new bishop to “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” The resolution did not demand restraint, nor could it, as the constitution and canons of the church prescribe how bishops are chosen. Those regulations cannot be overridden by a General Convention resolution. In particular, Canon III.1.2 applies to the selection of bishops:

No person shall be denied access to the discernment process for any ministry, lay or ordained, in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities or age, except as otherwise provided by these Canons. No right to licensing, ordination, or election is hereby established.

One can quibble about the relation of this canon to B033, but many considered the General Convention resolution to have either violated Canon III.1.2 directly (and to therefore have been of no legal effect) or to have encouraged its violation. In practice, no gay bishop has been selected since B033 was enacted. We cannot know if the resolution prevented a gay bishop from being selected; gay candidates for the episcopate were certainly considered during this period, even though none was actually elected.

The legislative committee out of which D025 emerged in nearly its final state chose to follow the advice of the Presiding Bishop in choosing how to deal with B033:

“I've been very clear in my public communications for the last few months that my hope is that we not attempt to repeal past legislation at General Convention—it’s a bad legislative practice,” said Jefferts Schori. “I would far more prefer us to say where we are today, in 2009, to make a positive statement about our desire to include all people fully in this church and that we be clear about who we are as the Episcopal Church.[”] (From “Episcopal Church leaders give webcast preview of General Convention .”)

The resulting legislation has three parts:

1. A declaration of support for the Anglican Communion.
2. A description of the church’s view of long-term, monogamous, same-sex couples and the access to ordained positions in the church afforded persons in such relationships.
3. An acknowledgment that neither The Episcopal Church nor the Anglican Communion is of one mind with respect to the matters dealt with in the second part of the resolution.

One gets the feeling that parts (1) and (3) are sweeteners for, what for many, is the bitter pill of (2), the heart of the resolution. What the general convention did was to reiterate what the church has already said about gays, on one hand, and to call attention to the non-discriminatory canons by which people attain ordained positions, including bishop, in The Episcopal Church. The church has no problems with long-term, monogamous same-sex relationships, and persons in such relationships are perfectly acceptable as bishops, all things being equal.

B033, of course, is not mentioned in the resolution. What of it? Technically, B033 has been neither repealed nor modified, and it is therefore still in effect. On the other hand, as a later resolution, it is D025, not B033 that represents the General Convention’s current thinking on the matter of gay bishops. Is the church really saying now that anyone, including a gay person in a monogamous same-sex relationship, is as eligible to be considered for elevation to bishop as anyone else, but don’t dare vote for such a person? I think not. B033 is essentially dead. Some who must consent to the consecration of any future episcopal candidate may think about B033 in making their decision. Certainly, a responsible decision maker must consider the possible consequences of his or her vote, but D025 will make a vote for a gay candidate much easier, as the “advice” the General Convention gave in 2006 is rescinded, de facto, if not de jure, by D025.

Other Matters

I believe The Episcopal Church generally, and the 2006 General Convention particularly, has been disingenuous in its dealings with the Anglican Communion. Had it been asked directly if it wanted to declare an indefinitely long moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops, the 2006 General Convention would almost assuredly have voted no. Bishops were afraid they might not be invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference unless they did something that at least looked like a moratorium, however, so they came up with the ambiguous—some would say duplicitous—B033. Deputies were given insufficient time to consider the legislation fully and, at the urging the Presiding Bishop and his elected successor, probably acted against their collective better judgment.

What is refreshing about D025, despite a certain obliqueness I would have preferred to have seen eliminated, is that it represents The Episcopal Church as it is, rather than how we would like others to perceive it is in order to get them off our backs. After repeatedly playing games with the bigots and despots among the Anglican primates, our church has declared that it has no essential problem with homosexual sex and maintains no institutional barriers to the consecration of future gay bishops.

The Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, in a video explaining D025 posted on the General Convention’s Media Hub Web site, described the resolution as being “honest,” “clear,” and “transparent.” That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but his point is well taken. Relating D025 to the Anglican Communion, Douglas said, “Communion is about being genuine with each other. There is no real communion if we don't speak the truth in love.” Someone should have told this to The Episcopal Church six years ago.

President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Shori have now written a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to offer their perspective on the passage of D025. “We understand Resolution D025 to be more descriptive than prescriptive in nature—a statement that reaffirms commitments already made by The Episcopal Church and that acknowledges certain realities of our common life,” they wrote. D025 was passed “with the hope that such authenticity would contribute to deeper conversation in these matters.” Anderson and Jefferts Schori assert that B033 has not been repealed, while acknowledging that, for many, at least, it effectively has been.

I strongly take issue with Jefferts Schori’s view that repealing past legislation is “bad legislative practice.” I think she made up this ludicrous assertion in order to be able to say to the Anglican Communion—to the Archbishop of Canterbury in this case—that B033 is still in effect. Practically, it is not.

I was disappointed in my own assisting bishop’s statement in Ann Rodgers’ story. The Rt. Rev. Robert H. Johnson apparently said that the General Convention did not repeal B033. “I don’t see that there would be any threat to the moratorium unless we get presented with another partnered lesbian or gay bishop. That would be the test. But [D025] was a clarification, reminding us of where we are in the Episcopal Church. That is the way the bishops saw it,” Rodgers quotes Johnson as saying. I’m sure that Johnson is concerned about retaining the conservatives who have remained in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and about not unnecessarily alienated those who have left the diocese but might conceivably come back.

My own view is that anyone who has been paying attention could not have been surprised by the position taken in D025, though he or she might have been surprised that General Convention had the courage actually to articulate it. Anyone who cannot live with a church that can pass a D025 might be happier in some other church.

I note that D025 contains a number of grammatical flaws and is rather more effusive than absolutely necessarily in its support of the Anglican Communion, which, in the past six years, can best be characterized as the instrument of our church’s persecution. (See my post “D025.”) Predictably, the Archbishop of Canterbury has criticized The Episcopal Church for abandoning the mythical moratorium, while taking no notice of our support offered the Anglican Communion in the General Convention resolution. We are, of course, used to this kind of treatment. Perhaps we are finally getting fed up with it, however.

Finally, D025 is gratifying to Episcopalians like me who have seen our church tie itself into knots trying to reconcile the irreconcilable and placate those who want nothing more than to cast us into the outer darkness. D025 should also provide some hope to GLBT people in Africa and elsewhere who have been the hidden victims of the ignorance and prejudice of all too many Anglican leaders. There is reason to hope that a new day is dawning for authentic Anglicanism. May its light shine in the most benighted corners of the Anglican universe.