A Letter from Pittsburgh’s Bishop-elect

Pittsburgh Episcopalians have just received a letter from Bishop-elect Dorsey McConnell in their inboxes. The subject of the missive is how he intends to deal with same-sex blessings in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh assuming that, as expected, the General Convention approves trial liturgy for such blessings. (The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recognizes neither civil partnerships nor same-sex marriage, so Pittsburgh priests won’t be performing any same-sex marriages in any case.)

McConnell says about what we were led to expect regarding same-sex blessings, namely, that he expects to have a dialogue seeking consensus—what he calls a local sensus fidelium—before proceeding or, presumably, not. I was a bit surprised to see that “the ordination of those in same-sex partnerships” is also included in the Pittsburgh moratorium. (I believe that we have partnered homosexuals already in the ordination process in Pittsburgh.)

McConnell writes:

The liturgies that have been proposed do, in fact, articulate such a set of conclusions. They expound a theology of blessing and implement it through sacramental rites. Since the substance of this theology, and the mode of its expression, are among the questions that belong to our inquiry, for your bishop to license the use of these rites before we have had a chance to open together the questions they conclude, would be to turn a deliberative process into mere talk about things that had already been decided. The question of whether these, or other similar rites, may or may not have a place in our common life needs to be considered as part of our discussion, not made moot before we have even begun.

He says he expects to begin a diocesan dialogue by January 2013 and have preliminary conclusions by Pentecost. From one point of view, this seems reasonable, at least insofar as as the process seeks to head off the kind of destructive conflict that Pittsburgh saw all too much of prior to October 2008.

And yet, the tenor of this proposal seems different from the conversation about human sexuality that Bishop Ken Price proposed for the diocese but never initiated. What the bishop-elect proposes seems too much like the diocese’s having a referendum on whether it is going to defer to the judgement of the General Convention or not. I would have preferred an approach more like that of Texas Bishop C. Andrew Doyle. I believe, in other words, that Dorsey McConnell has made his first major mistake with regard to the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Of course, McConnell is not oblivious to the perils of what he is doing. He says

One other note: I have heard from a few who appear to believe that my approach to this matter is somehow insincere or evasive, that this is all a mere stalking-horse, that I will eventually seek to marginalize those with whom I disagree and return the diocese to something like the Bad Old Days. I completely understand this apprehension. How can you really know me yet? Given all that has happened in this diocese, the fact that you are willing to trust me at all is a testimony to God’s grace and your open-heartedness, and to the healing you have begun under Bishops Johnson and Price.

I share the concern about “the Bad Old Days,” though I am not among those the bishop-elect has heard from, though I suppose he has now.

You can read Dorsey McConnell’s letter in its entirety on the diocesan Web site.

Alternatives to “No”

The Episcopal Church’s 2012 General Convention begins next week, a fact that has me thinking more than usual about what the governing body of the church will do about the Anglican Covenant. Virtually no one expects it to be adopted, but there are many shades of gray between definitive rejection and outright acceptance, some of which are apparent from studying the resolutions that have been put forward so far. (See “A Comparison of General Convention Resolutions on the Anglican Covenant.”)

As I have said repeatedly, I believe that the General Convention should say “no” to the Covenant in the strongest possible terms, not only to opt out of the pact but also to advance the process of euthanizing what is a bad idea badly implemented. That the Covenant is already effective for some churches will make it difficult for the Communion to put the final nails in the Covenant’s coffin, and, even with a clear trend among churches to reject the agreement, the Covenant is likely to remain a zombie-like presence in the Communion for years to come. Episcopalians in Indianapolis can do only so much.

Although I would interpret unambiguous rejection of the Covenant as a courageous act of leadership, some would see it as evidence of Episcopal Church arrogance or, more charitably, rudeness. If nothing else, Anglicans must always be well-mannered. A friend of mine who is opposed to the Covenant but who is nothing if not courteous, wrote to me about “the traditional way of killing things off politely,” namely, referring the matter to a committee. Or, he suggested, we could pose questions to the Anglican Communion Office or the next Lambeth Conference.

This latter strategy is an interesting one and would certainly postpone the church’s having to commit itself for another three (or even nine) years. But, assuming that asking questions about the Covenant is sincere and not just a strategy to buy time—politeness and insincerity are not incompatible after all—can anyone give a definitive answer to how the Covenant will “really” work?

The answer to this question is simply “no.” The Anglican Communion has no ultimate central authority—that is something the Covenant would change. But for now, no one can say how the Covenant will work in practice. Certainly, not the Anglican Communion Office, which some have argued does not even have legitimate existence under existing Communion rules. Likewise, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, and even the Archbishop of Canterbury (this one or the next) can only speculate about life under the Covenant. None of the “Instruments” is in a position to make promises it can keep, and even the Covenant itself grants to individual Instruments the power to make independent, and perhaps conflicting, decisions about “relational consequences.”

Under the best of circumstances, it can be difficult to predict the consequence of new governing documents. (I write this as I await the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Health Care Act. The Founding Fathers could not have anticipated the need for such a legal opinion, and, a decade ago, no one would have considered the individual mandate to be controversial.) This is surely true in the case of the Covenant, which some think will be innocuous and others believe will transform the Communion dramatically. In a sense, every such compact is a pig in a poke, and representations about the pig by the seller need to be taken with a grain of salt. When nasty noises are coming from inside the poke, however, the buyer should beware. There are other pigs. Or we can eat cake.

Getting Ready for General Convention

Brochures for General Convention (click for larger image)

Yesterday, I picked up two boxes of No Anglican Covenant Coalition brochures I’ll be taking to Indianapolis for the 2012 General Convention. These now decorate my living room along with one outrageously large box of Coalition buttons. (You can see one of the buttons on Comprehensive Unity: The No Anglican Covenant Blog.) Fortunately, I’ll be driving to Indianapolis!

I’m happy to say that the buttons and brochures have been fully paid for from contributions by Coalition members and by supporters donating money to the cause on-line via PayPal.  Thanks are due to all who have pitched in already, but we still need more money for travel, lodging, food, and other expenses. If you have not made a contribution, please consider doing so using the Donate button below.

At one time, I thought that the Anglican Covenant would be the hottest topic of discussion in Indianapolis. Now, however, it looks like the Covenant will take a back seat to church reorganization and, especially, the budget. I have personally avoiding wading into the muck that is in the budget mess, but it is clear from reading blogs and the House of Bishops and Deputies E-mail List that many people are up to their necks in that muck. God bless ’em! I don’t know what the “right” outcome is for the budget, but I do pray that we somehow achieve it.

Given that the Covenant is only going to be the third- (or fourth- or fifth-) most important issue being dealt with at the General Convention, do you think this will work in favor of the No Anglican Covenant cause or against it?

Help the No Anglican Covenant Coalition Tell Its Message at General Convention

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition will have a presence at the 2012 General Convention in Indianapolis next month. We hope to convince the convention to say a definitive “no” to the Anglican Covenant.

This is an ambitious enterprise for an all-volunteer organization, so the Coalition is asking for donations to help send our moderator, Malcolm French, and myself, the Episcopal Church convenor, to Indianapolis. Among other things, Malcolm and I will be distributing buttons and brochures.

I have written our “official” request for donations on the Coalition’s blog, Comprehensive Unity. If you just cannot wait to send us money, however, you can click on the button below. Note that (1) donations are not tax-deductible (sorry), and (2) I am acting as treasurer, so you will see both the Coalition’s name and my name on the PayPal pages to which you will be sent by clicking on the Donate button.

Thanks for your help. I hope to see many of my readers in Indianapolis.

June 21, 1788, and the Anglican Covenant

I was reminded by NPR this morning that the United States Constitution was ratified on this day, June 21, in 1788. The Constitution was completed by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787. Its Article VII stated that

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

On June 21, 1788, the ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the Constitution. March 4, 1789, was chosen as the day the new goverment would be established. (Perhaps we should celebrate March 4 with the same enthusiasm that we demonstrate for July 4.) All the states eventually ratified the Constitution, although the last one, Rhode Island, did not do so until May 29, 1790.

I mention these facts to make comparisons with adoption procedures for the Anglican Covenant. The final text of the Covenant was announced on December 17, 2009. The Covenant includes a whole section (4.1) on adoption, but the relevant paragraph for our purposes is 4.1.6:

This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.

The relationship of the United States to the Constitution in 1787 is similar to that of the Anglican Communion to the Anglican Covenant in 2009. In each case, an organization was in place that some people thought was inadequate. In each case, there was a plan to replace existing structures with new ones. One might even say that the purpose of each proffered document was to intensify relationships among the entities being asked to embrace it.

What is different about the approval process for the Constitution and that for the Anglican Covenant is that the framers of the Constitution sought a unity that could not be assumed as a given. They knew their document would be a hard sell, and they wanted to avoid creating a more fractured union by having it apply at any time to only a small minority of states but not to others. Only when two-thirds of the states ratified the Constitution would it go into effect.

The drafters of the Anglican Covenant, on the other hand, naïvely assumed that all churches would be eager to adopt the document, or thought it urgent that it at least some churches embrace it, or didn’t really care at all if churches such as the American and Canadian ones chose to opt out. In other words, the vaunted commitment to unity among Covenant backers was either mindless or insincere.

It would have made more sense had, for example, adoption by 26 of the 38 Anglican churches been required for the Covenant to go into effect. It would also have been wise to put a time limit on the adoption period. Although this was not done for the U.S. Constitution, it has become standard for the ratification of new amendments to the Constitution. It makes sense, after all, for the required acquiescing super-majority to express its acceptance more or less concurrently.

Alas, the odd ratification procedures used for the Anglican Covenant have already created a two-tier Communion of covenanting and, at the very least, yet-to-be-covenanting churches. (Lacking a deadline for adoption, it is unclear that any church can ever be said to have definitively rejected the Covenant.) This is hardly a formula to promote unity.

Assuming that few churches actually adopt the Anglican Covenant—this now seems possible, perhaps even likely—how will we restore unity to the Community by undoing the adoptions that have already been effected? How much time and energy will be expended on the process?

Uganda: Another Reason the Anglican Covenant Makes No Sense

In the past, there has been some question about just how much the Church of the Province of Uganda supported the anti-homosexual legislation proposed in the Ugandan parliament by member David Bahati. Apparently, there is no longer a question.

Kampala’s Daily Monitor reported June 10, 2012, that religious leaders at the annual conference of the Uganda Joint Christian Council called on parliament to move the anti-homosexuality bill forward to prevent “an attack on the Bible and the institution of marriage.” A resolution to that effect was signed by Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kampala; Jonah Lwanga, Archbishop of Kampala and All Uganda, of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria; and Henry Luke Orombi, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda. (According to The Living Church, Orombi earlier opposed the anti-homosexuality legislation. Apparently, he has changed his mind—a change in strategy, no doubt, rather than a change of heart.)

The legislation has received worldwide condemnation by human rights groups and other organizations, including the U.S. State Department. The draconian measure has had an on-again-off-again history, but it once more appears to be under active consideration by a legislative committee. (For the benefit of those who are familiar with the legislation, I will skip an enumeration of its vile provisions. A recent post by Peter Montgomery offers a quick review of the bill and its legislative history.)

I am calling attention to the declaration by the three archbishops simply to suggest how far apart are the attitudes toward homosexuals within the Church of Uganda and The Episcopal Church. The Ugandan church wants persons who engage in homosexual acts, fail to report suspected homosexuals to the authorities, or even discuss homosexuality openly to be jailed. The Episcopal Church welcomes homosexuals into its churches and, without embarrassment, makes them priests and bishops. Clearly, if both churches were to adopt the Anglican Covenant, each church could raise questions about the other under the agreement, leading to thus far undefined sanctions (“relational consequences”).

In reality, and despite the naïve doctrinal declarations of the Covenant, Ugandan and American Anglicans have very different theological understandings and significantly different cultural presuppositions. Reconciliation, if that is taken to mean that each church comes to approve the position of the other on a subject such as homosexuality, is, anytime soon at least, inconceivable. Honest discussion might lead to reciprocal understanding, but not to approval. Engagement under the terms of Section 4 of the Covenant would be mutually destructive of the principals and of the Communion generally. Contrary to the apparent beliefs (or wishes) of the Archbishop of Canterbury, some problems simply do not have solutions.

There is a silver lining, of sorts, in this situation. Archbishop Orombi has been prominent in GAFCON and was one of the signatories to the GAFCON Primates’ Council’s Oxford Statement of November 2010. That declaration said, in part,

And while we acknowledge that the efforts to heal our brokenness through the introduction of an Anglican Covenant were well intentioned we have come to the conclusion the current text is fatally flawed and so support for this initiative is no longer appropriate.

In other words, there is every reason to expect that the Church of Uganda will either never take up the matter of Covenant adoption or, if it does so, will reject the pact. That being the case, it does not matter what The Episcopal Church does with the Covenant, at least with respect to Uganda, as the dispute-resolution procedures of Section 4 will never come into play vis-à-vis the two churches. Five other African primates signed the Oxford Statement as well, so their churches, too, are unlikely to engage with other Anglican churches under the Covenant.

If this is the case, what is the point of the Covenant? The Anglican Communion, having spent untold Christian-hours and dollars (pounds, pesos, etc.) on developing and discussing the document that will soon come before the General Convention, has produced an agreement that is patently unfit for the purpose for which it was intended. To pretend otherwise is delusional.

Uganda is yet another reason for The Episcopal Church to reject the Covenant. The General Convention can justify the time needed to discuss the Covenant only insofar as discussion is needed to discern the most effective and definitive way of saying “no.”

Fosdick, Again

A few days ago, Elizabeth Kaeton, on her blog Telling Secrets, wrote about Dr. Willie J. Parker, whom she called a “Giant of Justice.” Parker, she explained, was reared in a fundamentalist, Pentecostal tradition but experienced a change of heart after reading Harry Emerson Fosdick’s famous 1922 sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”

Elizabeth’s post reminded me that I had written about the Fosdick sermon myself, and a quotation from it is on the home page of my Web site. I reproduced the Fosdick sermon in my November 16, 2009, post “Shall the ‘Orthodox’ Win?” I suggested in that post that the situation that Fosdick saw in 1922 was similar to the threat posed by the Anglican Covenant, which, in November 2009, had not yet achieved its final form. The Anglican “orthodox,” who pushed for a covenant but did not get quite what they wanted, are closely related to—and are sometimes indistinguishable from—the fundamentalists against which Fosdick railed.

Fosdick argued that, to defeat the fundamentalists, Christians need to exhibit “a spirit of tolerance and Christian liberty.” Also needed, he asserted, “is a clear insight into the main issues of modern Christianity and a sense of penitent shame that the Christian church should be quarreling over little matters when the world is dying of great needs.”

I want to call attention to “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” again because The Episcopal Church will begin its official consideration of how to respond to the Anglican Covenant, which is no longer a developing draft, in less than a month. The Covenant is the product of anti-modernist obsession with sexual issues, not a proper Christian concern for, as Fosdick put it, “the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith.” Moreover, the agreement, rather than embodying “a spirit of tolerance and Christian liberty,” exhibits a narrow-minded intolerance and spirit of retribution. If Fosdick were alive today, he would see the Anglican Covenant as driven by the same mindset against which he preached almost exactly 90 years ago. The fundamentalists are still trying to win.

Do read my 2009 post “Shall the ‘Orthodox’ Win?” It requires no updating.

A Comparison of General Convention Resolutions on the Anglican Covenant

On April 11, 2012, Mark Harris, on his blog Preludium, published a comparison of the three General Convention resolutions dealing with the Anglican Covenant that had been submitted to that time. Now there are seven resolutions, and it is time for another comparison. I hope that such an analysis will be helpful, particularly for those who will make a decision next month in Indianapolis about how The Episcopal Church will respond to the challenge of the Covenant.

General Convention resolutions are assigned to a legislative committee, which determines what legislation is sent to one of the two houses for debate. Those related to the Anglican Covenant are being handled by the Committee on World Mission. (All resolutions assigned to this committee, most of which do not involve the Anglican Covenant, can be found here.) That the committee has so many topics to consider suggests that it will have limited time to consider Anglican Covenant adoption.

When a legislative committee receives many resolutions on an important topic, it usually holds a public hearing to solicit opinions on the matter in question. It is then free to slice and dice the resolutions before it to fashion one or more resolutions to be considered by bishops and deputies. Of course, either the House of Bishops or House of Deputies can amend the proposed legislation, but the decisions of the committee have great influence.

The seven Covenant resolutions submitted for consideration so far are:

1. A126: “Consideration of the Anglican Covenant,” proposed by the Executive Council
2. A145, “Continue Dialogue in the Anglican Communion,” proposed by the Executive Council
3. B005, “Ongoing Commitment to The Anglican Covenant Process,” proposed by the Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas
4. B006, “Affirming the Anglican Covenant,” proposed by the Rt. Rev. John Bauerschmidt
5. D006, “Consideration of a Covenant for Communion in Mission,” proposed by Mr. Jack Tull
6. D007, “Response to Anglican Covenant,” proposed by the Rev. Canon Susan Russell
7. D008, “Affirm Anglican Communion Participation,” proposed by the Rev. Tobias Haller BSG

 Resolution A126, the first resolution to be made public—see Episcopal News Service story here—seems to have had some influence on most of the subsequently submitted resolutions, and especially on Bishop Douglas’s B005, which includes some of the same language. Resolutions A126 and A145, both from the Executive Council, are identical, save for their titles and a single word substitution. I have no explanation for this.

The first Executive Council resolution was proposed before it became clear that Church of England dioceses might block adoption of the Covenant by the English church. B005 was offered after that possibility became apparent but before it was realized. (See The Living Church story here.) All the other resolutions appear to have been written after Church of  England dioceses rejected the Covenant.

Six of the resolutions can be ranked from most accepting of the Covenant to least accepting:

• B006
• B005
• A126/A145
• D007
• D006

Tobias Haller’s resolution (D008) is something of an outlier, about which I will have more to say below.

To facilitate discussing the resolutions, I have prepared a chart similar to Harris’s but differing in a number of respects. Because I had to deal with seven, not three, resolutions, displaying parallel columns within this post was not practical. Instead, I created an Excel worksheet, from which I generated the PDF version I have posted on the Web. To facilitate comparison of the provisions of the various resolutions, I assigned them to named categories (“Title,” “Participation in Communion,” “Financial Commitment,” etc.) representing rows in my chart. Finally, rather than displaying the actual resolution text, I paraphrased provisions, both for brevity and to emphasize similarities. I believe that I have represented the resolutions fairly, but I will happily entertain suggestions to improve my paraphrases.

An Overview of the Resolutions

Let me begin by summarizing the various resolutions, using the order shown above, modified slightly for purposes of clarity. I have tried not to editorialize unduly in what follows and not at all in my chart. I have not been so restrained in my closing remarks.

Chart comparing resolutions (page 1)

B006.  The listed backers of this resolution are all Communion Partner Bishops. Despite the high-sounding goals of this group, I think it fair to say that its members have been a constant thorn in the side of The Episcopal Church, view the Anglican Communion as more important than The Episcopal Church, and hold a bizarre, minority view of the nature of Episcopal Church polity. Given their past behavior, including submission of a disgraceful amicus brief in the Fort Worth property litigation, the nature of B006 comes as no surprise.

B006 “affirms” the Covenant and commits to its adoption. Because its backers apparently realize that the agreement is incompatible with current church polity—see the February 15, 2011, report from the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons—the resolution would create a special task force to work with the Standing Commission  on Constitution and Canons to identify specific changes that would be required to the church’s governing documents and to prepare materials in support of those changes. The resolution requests $20,000 to support this work, with the understanding that a report would be offered to the 78th General Convention, at which formal approval of the Covenant could be effected. B006, in other words, effectively commits the church to adopting the Covenant.

B006 is notable for its repeated use of language lifted directly from the Covenant itself and for its explicit citations of Covenant paragraphs. The resolution makes it clear that Episcopal Church submission to the Covenant should be sincere and complete.

A126/A145. Executive Council proposed A126 last October—see ENS story here—basing it on the work of the task force called for in resolution D020 passed by the 2009 General Convention. A126 declares that “The Episcopal Church is unable to adopt the Anglican Covenant in its present form,” which, deliberately, is not a categorical rejection of a covenant in principle. (The Covenant, of course, makes no provision for acceptance short of unconditional adoption, the actions of certain other churches notwithstanding.) A126 commits to continued participation in the Anglican Communion and, more significantly, commits to “dialogue with the several provinces when adopting innovations that may be seen as threatening to the unity of the Communion.” One can read this as merely placating Covenant advocates or as abdicating our church’s authority. It is not clear what this might mean in practice. As noted above, A145 is virtually identical to A126.

B005. Bishop of Connecticut Ian Douglas proposed this resolution. Douglas has a long history of involvement with Episcopal Church governance and with Anglican Communion bodies. He is currently a member of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee. He is no stranger to Anglican disputes and has shown no special interest in throwing The Episcopal Church under the bus to achieve Anglican unity. He co-chaired the special commission that considered how the 2006 General Convention should respond to the Windsor Report—the commission’s report is here, and my own response to the report is here—and he served as an expert witness supporting the church and diocese in the Virginia property litigation.

B005 largely repeats the language of resolution A126, with two exceptions. First, instead of declaring that the church is unable to adopt the Covenant as presented, B005 would, as a sign of good faith, have us declare that the General Convention “embraces the affirmations and commitments” of the Covenant, minus the controversial Section 4. Second, it would create a body to “monitor the ongoing development of The Anglican Covenant,” particularly with respect to Section 4, to consider constitutional and canonical changes required to adopt the Covenant and what they might mean to Episcopal Church identity, and to consider other matters relating to Anglican Communion unity.

B005 aims to take The Episcopal Church farther down the road to Covenant adoption than does A126/A145. Like A126/A145, however, the ultimate consequences of B005 adoption are unclear. The resolution can be seen as an effort to buy time, perhaps as the Covenant collapses under its own weight, or to advance the church toward adoption at some future time when serious opposition to the Covenant has been neutralized. In his Explanation—since the Explanation for a resolution is not technically part of the resolution itself, I have not included information from the Explanation sections in my chart—Douglas indicates that the resolution is meant to send the signal that The Episcopal Church is “still in the process of adoption,” thereby allowing its representatives to participate in the disciplinary procedures of Section 4. If we believe that the Section 4 procedures are fundamentally misguided, however, as I believe most Episcopalians do, it is not clear why we want to be complicit in carrying them out.

D007. Resolution D007 is a very slightly modified version of the model resolution proposed by the No Anglican Covenant Coalition. The proposer is the Rev. Canon Susan Russell, a Coalition member. In addition to the required two endorsers, the resolution lists 11 sponsors from various dioceses,

Not surprisingly, D007 rejects the Covenant—“decline to adopt” is the phrase used. While affirming commitment to the Anglican Communion, the resolution clearly asserts what is seen as the proper nature of that Communion. D007 also calls upon church leaders at all levels to seek opportunities to “strengthen and restore relationships” within the Communion.

D007, in its Explanation, attempts to show how we got to where we are now. Specifically, it suggests that anger of what The Episcopal Church has done over the years—ordaining women and homosexuals, consecrating partnered homosexuals, etc.—is what is really behind the Covenant. “Declining to adopt the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant,” the Explanation asserts, “not only avoids permanent, institutionalized division, it opens the way for new opportunities to build relationships across differences through bonds of affection, by participation in the common mission of the gospel, and by consultation without coercion or intimidation.”

D006. This resolution was proposed by layperson Jack Tull in the Diocese of Florida. Tull believes that we should expend no more resources on the Anglican Covenant. As do many Episcopalians, he believes that “A Covenant for Communion in Mission,” which was developed by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism (IASCOME), makes a better Anglican covenant than the one our church is being asked to adopt. (Tull included “A Covenant for Communion in Mission” as an attachment to his resolution.)

D006, like most of the resolutions, commits to continued participation in the Anglican Communion. It also commits the church to “A Covenant for Communion in Mission.” That covenant abjures doctrinal minutiae and focuses on what one might call Christian mission, “promoting God’s presence and healing to those in our world that are broken and disenfranchised,” as B006 expresses it. As for the Covenant, B006 simply declares that the “77th General Convention declines to adopt” it. The resolution goes one step further, however, resolving that the church should expend no additional resources “on this proposed covenant.”

D006 is short on Anglican niceties (or Anglican fudge). It is straightforward, says a clear “no” to the Covenant, and slams the door on the “Windsor Process,” “Covenant reception,” or whatever games Rowan Williams wants to play in his attempt to get all his church’s children to play nice with one another. One has to admire that.

D008. Finally, there is this resolution from the Rev. Tobias Haller BSG, which seems not to be about the Covenant at all, not until one reads its Explanation, at any rate. Haller believes that, since the Covenant has no chance of being widely adopted, it is effectively dead. (I am less sanguine about the Covenant’s longevity, but I understand where he’s coming from.) He therefore wants The Episcopal Church to support something positive to bring Communion churches together.

D008 says nice thing about the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury, says absolutely nothing about the Anglican Covenant, and calls upon church leaders to strengthen relationships in various ways among Anglican churches. In particular, Haller singles out the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening project.

I don’t believe that Haller expects D008 to be adopted without a provision in some resolution being approved that actually addresses Covenant adoption. For the General Convention to simply ignore the Covenant could rightly be seen as passive-aggressive.

A Comparison of Provisions

Having done a quick vertical tour of the columns of my chart, I will now look at the rows, comparing related provisions in the resolutions.

Titles. No two resolutions have the same title. A126 and D007 carry nondescript titles simply indicating that the resolution is responding to the Communion request to act on the Covenant. It is unclear why A145 has a title different from that of A126, but “Continue Dialogue in the Anglican Communion” more properly characterizes the content of the two resolutions from the Executive Council. All the other titles do a reasonable job of suggesting what they are about (for example, B006’s “Affirming the Anglican Covenant”).

Thanks. General Convention resolutions often begin by thanking someone for something. The thanks may be sincere, but one suspects that they are about as often ironic. A126/A145 and B005 each expresses “profound gratitude to those who so faithfully worked at producing the Anglican Covenant.” I suspect there is more sincerity in the latter resolution than in A126/A145. B006 expands this same wording by characterizing the Covenant produced by its authors as expressing “mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ,” quoting the statement from the Toronto Anglican Congress of 1963. (The original meaning of this phrase has been repeated and, I suspect, deliberately, misinterpreted. See my post “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence.”) No one is thanked in D006; I suspect that Tull is not especially grateful. D007 offers thanks, though it isn’t clear to whom (“all who have worked to increase understanding and strengthen relationships among the churches of the Anglican Communion”). This, of course, is tasty Anglican fudge. It is doubtful that Rowan Williams is meant to be included among those being thanked in D007, whereas D008, as something of a retirement gift, praises Rowan’s “tireless efforts” on behalf of Communion unity.

Communion Membership. (Note that I am not completely confident about distinguishing this category from the next one.) B006 reaffirms “constituent membership in the Anglican Communion,” which seems innocent enough, but it goes on to cite the Preamble of the church’s constitution, echoing a distinctively conservative view of the Preamble. (See “Changes Needed in the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.”) D007 also takes an opportunity to advance a particular understanding of the Communion, asserting that it is “properly drawn together by bonds of affection, by participation in the common mission of the gospel, and by consultation without coercion or intimidation.” The resolution is declaring the kind of Communion to which it is pledging its allegiance. D008 takes a similar approach, referring to “the fellowship of the world-wide Anglican Communion, which is rooted in our shared worship and held together by bonds of affection and our common appeal to Scripture, tradition and reason.” Perhaps an ideal resolution would incorporate ideas from all three resolutions, and particularly those of D007 and D008.

Participation in Communion. A126/A145 and B005 make virtually the same unremarkable commitment to participate in Communion councils and to continue dialogue with other churches. (Actually, the clauses of A126 and B005 are identical. A145 uses “insure” where the others use “ensure.” I don’t see any real difference here.) D006 begins with the same wording, but, whereas the other resolutions say that engagement is for “the continued integrity of the Anglican Communion,” D006 identifies the purpose as “working together for common mission to bring God’s word to all people and to help those afflicted by poverty, hunger, disease and other disasters,” arguably a higher purpose. D007, on the other hand, reaffirms commitment to the Communion, characterized as a “fellowship of autonomous national and regional churches,” again asserting a particular view of what the Anglican Communion should be. B006 likewise asserts a commitment to a particular view of the Communion, namely one in which The Episcopal Church recommits “itself to living in a Communion of Churches with autonomy and accountability (Anglican Covenant 3.1.2), by acknowledging our interdependent life (3.2) and seeking a shared mind with other Churches (3.2.4),” again relying on phrases drawn directly from the Covenant.

Other Communion Commitments. D006 declares a commitment to “A Covenant for Communion in Mission.”

Self-restraint. A126/A145, and B005, using identical language, commit the church to “dialogue with the several provinces when adopting innovations which may be seen as threatening to the unity of the Communion.” One has to ask if this isn’t giving away the store by restraining autonomy, although, technically, these resolutions do not actually require The Episcopal Church to take any advice it gets. In any case, it is not clear what this would look like in practice or how compliance with the commitment could be assured.

Action on Covenant. A126  and A145 assert that “The Episcopal Church is unable to adopt the Anglican Covenant in its present form,” thereby leaving the door open to adopting a covenant in a different form. D006, which seeks to make the Covenant forever go away, says more definitively that the General Convention “declines to adopt” the Covenant. D007 uses similar wording. It softens the blow by speaking of the church’s prayerful consideration of the Covenant, and it offers specific reasons for rejection, namely believing the “agreement to be contrary to Anglican ecclesiology and tradition and to the best interests of the Anglican Communion.” B005, to demonstrate our dedication to Communion unity, has the General Convention embracing “the affirmations and commitments” of the Covenant, minus Section 4. Of course, although almost everyone admits that Section 4 of the Covenant is its most problematic section, many dispute the glib assertion that the remainder of the Covenant is perfectly acceptable. It looks good only by virtue of Section 4’s being so abysmally bad. B006 “affirms” the Covenant and commits to its adoption “in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence with [which?] is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion (4.1.1),” quoting the Covenant, as this resolution is wont to do.

Autonomy. B006, again using words from the Covenant, asserts that the “mutual commitment” the church takes on via B006 “does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction (4.1.3) and can only be entered into according to the procedures of The Episcopal Church’s own Constitution and Canons (4.1.6; cf.4.1.4).” Of course, the Covenant’s assertion that it does not restrict provincial autonomy is intended to be reassuring, even though it is transparently false.

Other Covenant-related Action. Two resolutions, B005 and B006, call for the creation of groups that will consider the Covenent further. D006, on the other hand, declares that the church is “unwilling to continue expending funds, time and energy on this proposed covenant.” The stated justification for this position is perhaps weaker than it might be. D006 asserts that the church “is unable to reach a clear consensus” on the Covenant. I suggest that the Covenant is predominately viewed in a negative light by Episcopalians, though many have qualms about the consequences of rejecting it outright.

B006 would have the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies appoint a task force to work with the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons to identify changes to the church’s polity needed “to make the Covenant constitutionally and canonically active and affective.” (The commission has already identified areas of concern, of course.) B006 also calls for the development of materials in support of the necessary changes.

B005 is less clear as to what the Covenant end-game looks like for The Episcopal Church. It, too, has the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies appointing a group to further consider the Covenant. In this case, a task force of Executive Council is to consult with the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons, at least one church historian, and the church’s representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council, which, coincidentally, includes the proposer of this resolution, Ian Douglas. The tasks assigned to this group include monitoring Covenant development (whatever that means), with particular attention given to the controversial Section 4. Like B006, B005 has its appointed body considering polity changes required to support Covenant adoption. The B005 group would also look at consequences for Episcopal Church identity and “consider other such matters helpful to The Episcopal Church’s continued unity with the other churches of the Anglican Communion.

Follow-up to Other Covenant-related Action. Both B005 and B006 have their appointed bodies completing their work for the next General Convention. Whereas the task force called for in B006 reports directly to the 78th General Convention, B005 calls for the work to first be presented to the Executive Council.

Financial Commitment. Only B006 requests funds for its implementation, in this case, $20,000. D006 includes the provision that no additional funds are to be spent “on this proposed covenant.”

Other Episcopal Church Action. D007 calls on church leaders at every level “to seek opportunities to reach out to strengthen and restore relationships between this church and sister churches of the Communion.” The main provision of D008 falls under this category. It, too, calls for action by church leaders. Since its provisions are not clearly formatted, I will reproduce them here in a more digestible form. Leaders are asked (1) “to find ways to maintain and reinforce strong links across the world-wide Anglican Communion and to deepen The Episcopal Church’s involvement with the existing Communion ministries and networks (especially the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process);” (2) “to publicize and promote this work within the dioceses of the Church in order to broaden understanding of, and enthusiasm for, the Anglican Communion;  and” (3) “to encourage a wider understanding of, and support for, the next meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council and Lambeth Conference.

Parting Thoughts

All of the resolutions are supportive of the Anglican Communion. B006 and D007 are notable for advancing their visions of what the Communion should be, and those visions are remarkably different from one another.

In reality, The Episcopal Church has only limited ability to determine the nature of the Communion. That our church provides such a large fraction of the funds needed to support the administrative structure of the Communion, however, does give us leverage that could be used in the future. Certainly, if our church finds itself having reduced influence in the Communion for its failure to embrace the Anglican Covenant, we must consider whether we can justify continued financial support of the Communion at the same level as in the past.

My sense of the church is that an overwhelming majority of Episcopalians want to reject the Covenant outright and never hear of it again. I think only fear prevents many from advocating that course of action—fear of losing our place at the table; fear of losing our Anglican franchise; fear of a dividing Communion; fear of criticism from those whose Anglicanism is, to us, hardly recognizable. Fear is a poor motivation for action where courage and a prophetic voice are called for.

The Anglican Communion is important for its relationships, those involving churches, dioceses, parishes, and even individuals. The so-called Instruments of Communion are proving themselves to be not instruments of unity but of disunity. Particularly in an age of easy travel and communication, the centralizing tendencies exhibited by the Anglican Communion in recent years are not advancing the gospel. Instead, they are weakening the relationships that truly matter and providing a playing field for those whose goal is the accumulation of power to execute their strategies.

In deciding on whether to adopt the Anglican Covenant or not, The Episcopal Church is pointing the way toward one or another Anglican future. Will we endorse the gospel mission of evangelism and concern for human suffering, or will we put “church” ahead of people and play the power games so characteristic of our sinful race? I cannot but think of the hymn that we, rather unfortunately, banned from our current hymnal that begins: “Once to every man and nation/Comes the moment to decide,/In the strife of truth with falsehood,/For the good or evil side.” That may seem rather melodramatic, but I do think our decision next month is an extremely important one. I fear that it may not receive the attention it deserves because we will be distracted by issues of budget and church organization.

Returning to the resolutions themselves, I personally am happy only with D006 and D007. It is hard to view D008 as a standalone statement of the church. One could imagine combining provisions of these three resolutions to create a strong view of what our church wishes to stand for and the kind of Communion that can justify our participation.

Resolution B006 is, I think, a nonstarter, though it will clearly have its supporters in Indianapolis. Its embrace of the Covenant, would, I think, cause our church to be under siege by the reactionary elements of the Communion for the foreseeable future and would, eventually, result in the demise of The Episcopal Church.

A126/A145 and B005 have the flavor of Anglican fudge and a faint odor of surrender. B005 seems to send us down a road we do not want to travel and suggests that most of the Covenant text is acceptable, which many believe it is not. A126/A145, while seeming to reject the Covenant, agree, in principle, that we have an obligation to consult with the rest of the Communion before we may do what we think good and proper for our church in this time and place. All three resolutions suggest that a modified version of the Covenant presently on offer might be acceptable to The Episcopal Church. I can only ask for how many decades we are willing to expend our energies, money, and enthusiasm on the enterprise of creating such a version.

It is my hope, then, that the Committee on World Mission will focus its attention on D006, D007, and D008. It is time for The Episcopal Church not only to act on its beliefs, but also to stop behaving as though, in our heart of hearts, we feel guilty for doing so. We should be acting boldly for Christ and not be ashamed of the gospel as we understand it.

Update, 7/5/2012. One other resolution on the Anglican Covenant has been submitted and is being considered by the Word Mission Legislative Committee. D046, from Tobias Haller and Albert Mollegen, declares Covenant adoption moot because other churches have rejected it. This resolution will not fly as it is, but the subcommittee working on resolutions may make use of it.

Update, 7/7/2012. Resolution C115 has been submitted, which simply kicks the can down the road and does nothing else. It is all of three lines.

Thoughts on the Standing Committee Meeting

The Standing Committee met last week. Anglicans Online had this to say about the meeting:

30 May 2012: Anglican Standing Committee meets; most delegates remain conscious
The Anglican Communion News Service dutifully published daily reports of each of the three meeting days of the Standing Committee, which met in London last week. Please believe us when we tell you that there is absolutely nothing that you need to know in any of those reports, and you probably don’t even need to know of their existence. If it is late at night and you are having trouble falling asleep you can go look at the reports from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Whereas I appreciate AO’s humor, I must disagree that nothing interesting happened (or was reported). The Wednesday report included this:

The Standing Committee received an update on the progress of the Anglican Communion Covenant. It was noted that eight Provinces had endorsed the Covenant to date, in some cases with a degree of qualification. They were the only responses received so far by the Secretary General. The committee also noted that the President, Chair, and Vice-Chair all hold their offices other than as representatives of their Provinces.

There was general agreement that no timeframe should yet be introduced for the process of adoption of the Covenant by Provinces. The Standing Committee will return to this question following ACC-15.

There are, in fact, three interesting tidbits in these two short paragraphs

First, it is interesting that the Standing Committee took no notice of the rejection of the Covenant by the Church of England. There has been a good deal of speculation as to what one is to make of this. Here are some theories:

• Although a majority of dioceses have voted against returning Covenant adoption to the July General Synod meeting, thereby effectively blocking adoption, the result is not official until General Synod is formally made aware of it. (This is the most benign interpretation.)
• Church House may simply be slow in communicating officially the bad news to the Secretary General. The delay may or may not be deliberate.
• Rejection of the Covenant is perhaps being construed as impossible. The Church of England, for example, can reconsider Covenant adoption at the next General Synod, which first meets in 2015. (See “What If England Votes Against the Covenant?”)
•  Perhaps no one has the heart or fortitude to admit that the Covenant has been rejected by Rowan Williams’ own church, at least until the incumbent Archbishop of Canterbury has stepped down in December.

 I have no idea which of these theories, if any, might be true.

Second, it is interesting that the Standing Committee, while seemingly admitting that it might be appropriate to place a time limit on Covenant adoption—I assume this is what is meant by introducing a “timeframe”—is not yet ready to do so. At what point will Communion leaders admit that the expectation that all churches would accept the Covenant was delusional and that allowing an eternity for adoption is unreasonable, not to mention embarrassing?

Third, there is this curious sentence:

The committee also noted that the President, Chair, and Vice-Chair all hold their offices other than as representatives of their Provinces.

One suspects that this bizarre declaration is a product of anxiety about the implications of rejection of the Covenant by the Church of England. If it is construed that the Church of England is not “still in the process of adoption,” then, according to §4.2.8 of the Covenant, representatives of the Church of England cannot participate “in the decision making of the Standing Committee … in respect to section 4.2 [The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution].” Rowan Williams, president of the Standing Committee, and Elizabeth Paver, vice-chair of the Standing Committee, are both members of and, by any reasonable interpretation, representatives of the Church of England. If these people hold their offices “other than as representatives of their Provinces,” by virtue of what, indeed, do they hold their offices? Kevin Kallsen and George Conger over at Anglican TV, suggest that the Standing Committee is simply making up the rules as it goes along. I don’t always agree with Kevin and George, but I think they are right on target this time. It is interesting that members of the Standing Committee—I sincerely hope that this view is not shared by Katharine Jefferts Schori and Ian Douglass, the Episcopalians on the Standing committee—think it so important that Williams and Paver participate in whatever disciplinary matters that might come before the Standing Committee.

I find all this disingenuous maneuvering by the Anglican Communion leaders tiresome, and I wonder what it has to do with the advancement of the gospel. Whereas relationships between Anglican churches or between Anglican dioceses are useful, the so-called Instruments of  Communion seem to be money sinks pursuing their own agendas that have nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Am I missing something here?

Pentecost at St. David’s

St. David’s sign. The old church can be seen at the right.

Episcopal Church services returned to St. David’s in Peters Township on this day of Pentecost. (See “Changes Coming to Pittsburgh Diocese.”) The Rev. Kris McInnes, associate rector of my own parish, St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, conducted services at 8 o’clock and at 10:30. He also presided over an informational meeting between the services.

Although the word had been put out in various media about what was to happen today, it was unclear just how many people would show up at St. David’s. (Among other things, Kris and St. Paul’s’ rector, the Rev. Lou Hays, had sent a letter to people who have been worshiping at the church.)

When I arrived at the East McMurray Road property, I was delighted to find that the signage now declared the church an Episcopal, not an “Anglican,” facility. I was also happy to see that the electronic portion of the sign had been reprogrammed, not only welcoming worshipers to an Episcopal church but also giving the times of services and of the parish meeting.

I had not visited St. David’s since the 2002 diocesan convention at which then Bishop Robert Duncan’s take-no-prisioners march to the right became painfully evident. I had forgotten what an impressive facility St. David’s is. The parking lot is enormous, there is a rectory on the property, and there is a good deal of undeveloped land behind the church. In 2001, the congregation built a completely new worship space that, unfortunately, never seems to have attracted sufficient worshipers either to fill it or pay for it. The new church is of a pleasing contemporary design and is well-equipped to support worship in a variety of styles.

St. David’s. The new church is at the right.

As I was taking pictures outdoors, Elaine Coleman drove up and said hello. She is a former St. David’s parishioner who has been worshiping at All Saints’, Bridgeville, and wanted to see what was happening at her former parish. She was one of a number of people who had once worshiped at the Peters Township church who showed up this morning, though most such people came only for the 10:30 service.

When we entered the building, we were greeted with a table containing sign-up sheets—more on that later—and a table containing a variety of breakfast foods and a cake. Juice was plentiful, but coffee was in short supply. (This is a problem that needs to be fixed by next Sunday!) The people who had attended the early service were milling around and talking.

I was able to have a brief conversation with Kris, who was making more coffee in a painfully small coffeemaker. He told me that there were 10 people at the early service. Kris grew up at St. David’s, and I asked him how it felt to be coming home. He indicated that it did not feel quite as strange as it might have. He had left for college before the new church was built, so, although he was, in a sense, returning to his roots, he would be leading services in a place where he personally had never worshiped regularly. Obviously, however, he knew most of the people who would attend St. David’s this morning, and his mother and sister were prominent among the St. David’s people returning to the Episcopal Church fold.

Only 10 people attended the informational meeting. Kris did a fine job of describing the provisions that have been made for St. David’s, including financial ones. The diocese has committed to making up any deficits for a year, and it will do so for at least another year if all goes well. The priests from St. Paul’s, Kris and Lou, are committed to staying as long as necessary. Rental income, he suggested, will help the financial situation a lot. (There is a preschool at St. David’s. I don’t know what other sources of rental there might be, though the rectory could perhaps be rented.)

Kris explained that services had been scheduled at 8 and 10:30 because those are the times at which services have been scheduled at the church, but he suggested that the two services might soon be consolidated into one. He asked if anyone would be upset if only a Rite II Holy Eucharist were offered on Sunday morning. No objections were registered.

There is an urgent need, Kris said, for a treasurer. People from St. Paul’s are available to help a new treasurer get up to speed. (Only the ability to balance a checkbook is required, we were told.) Additionally, there will need to be volunteers to be on altar guild and vestry, and other volunteers to serve as ushers, chalice bearers, and the like. He invited people to put their names on the sign-up sheets I mentioned earlier to begin building a list of parishioners and possible volunteers. We want to be transparent, he said, and not cut corners. Some changes will need to be made to parish bylaws, allowing for a vestry smaller than the currently required 12, for example.

Inevitably, I suppose, someone asked if the things that had been said about The Episcopal Church during St. David’s’ “Anglican” days were true. (The person who asked the question referred to a “packet of materials” that had been promoted at the church. I presume the “packet” was the scurrilous document from the American Anglican Council, “The Episcopal Church: Tearing the Fabric of the Communion to Shreds.”) Kris pointed out that only a few church leaders were quoted in the material in question and that the church’s theology is determined by its prayer book, not by its leaders. He suggested that bishop-elect Dorsey McConnell is quite orthodox in his beliefs and will work to bring us together. The focus at St. David’s will not be on church politics, he added, but on love, charity, and grace. I added that The Episcopal Church has both liberal and conservative bishops and that Anglicanism, historically, has been characterized by its theological diversity.

The meeting was, in fact, rather brief, and we were soon back in the narthex discussing St. David’s, enjoying the refreshments, and greeting new people as they arrived. Of greatest concern to those with a longstanding connection to St. David’s was the disappearance of some stained glass. Apparently, the departing congregation agreed not to take the stained glass but did so anyway. (One hopes there was a misunderstanding, and the property will soon be returned.)

By the time we were ready to begin the second service, there were roughly 40 people in the church, including a handful of children. I'm not sure how many were in what category, but the congregation included people who had remained at St. David’s after the 2008 schism, recent and not-so-recent former parishioners, and well-wishers.

Worshipers were provided with a service leaflet that contained the entire service, so neither prayer book nor hymnal was required. The service itself was fairly traditional. There was no choir, of course, but hymns from Hymnal 1982 accompanied by electronic organ represented about half the music used in the service. The rest of the music was provided by a small praise band, which included Kris on guitar. (Apparently, about half the instrumentalists who had been playing at St. David’s stayed and half left.)

Kris begins distributing the elements of communion.

Kris delivered a fine sermon based on the reading from John’s gospel. He emphasized that St. David’s will be a church of love, charity, and grace, a place where love and peace will be offered where there has so often been discord and hate. He pointed out that apostles Matthew, a tax collector for the Romans, and Simon the Zealot were poles apart yet were brought together by Jesus. If those two could get along, he said, we can all come together at the same table.

At the announcements, Kris repeated some of what he had said at the earlier meeting, and again encouraged sign-ups and volunteers. He also read a letter from Bishop Price. The bishop wrote that there is no more appropriate day than Pentecost for a congregation to begin a new life together. Jon Delano, a layperson from St. Paul’s who is chair of District III and a member of the Standing Committee, said a few words as well that might best be characterized as a welcome and a pep talk.

The rest of the service proceeded uneventfully, and worshipers greeted the preacher, partook of the refreshments, conversed, and, eventually, said their goodbyes.

It was, I think, a good beginning for a St. David’s returned to its former status in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Lou will preach next week. I hope that no one will be disappointed that he doesn’t play guitar.

What’s Wrong with My Oxalis?

My Oxalis—see picture below—seems to be sick. In many ways, the plant seems fine, but the leaflets have developed white spots. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and what I should do about it?

Sick Oxalis
Click for larger picture.

What to Do about Pakistan?

An interesting thought occurred to me yesterday.

What sparked the idea was the news story that Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afrid had been convicted of treason for his assistance to the CIA in finding Osama bin Laden and sentenced to 33 years in prison. This was just the latest indication that Pakistan, ostensibly an ally, is substantially hostile to U.S. interests and coöperates with the U.S. only insofar as it is necessary to collect billions of dollars in foreign aid and other compensatory payments. Pakistan–U.S. relations are most problematic with respect to our operations in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, where, it seems, we operate drones with impunity to kill members of the Taliban. That the Tribal Areas provide safe haven—relatively safe haven, anyway—for the Taliban is one reason the war in Afghanistan has dragged on so long.

My thought may be half-baked, as I haven’t considered all possible implications, particularly, but not limited to, the fact that Pakistan is a nation possessing nuclear weapons. Anyway, here is my idea: Why not just declare war on Pakistan and fight a real war in the Tribal Areas?

PEP Meets with Bishop-Elect

Pittsburgh’s bishop-elect was in town yesterday for a brief visit, and Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) took the opportunity to have a conversation with him.

About 35 PEP members brought food for a potluck supper to Church of the Redeemer, Squirrel Hill. They were joined for dinner by Dorsey McConnell, who listened to a brief history of PEP given by PEP president Joan Gundersen, followed by a lively dialogue between PEP members and the next Bishop of Pittsburgh.

Although some questions probed McConnell’s views and intentions, a majority of remarks from those gathered around the table were aimed at explaining the state of the diocese and the path by which it arrived where it is. Much hurt and frustration were in evidence. Many stories told were set in the Duncan era, but it was clear that Pittsburgh Episcopalians believe that blame for the 2008 schism must be shared with Trinity School for Ministry, with Pittsburgh clergy, and with prior Pittsburgh bishops.

The bishop-elect’s least well received response was elicited by a question about same-sex blessings: If, as expected, the General Convention approves trial use of a liturgy for blessing same-sex unions, would a Bishop McConnell allow that liturgy to be used in Pittsburgh? McConnell repeated the noncommittal response he gave at the March walkabouts—see “Walkabout Reflections”—namely, that discussion and consensus would be needed before same-sex unions could be blessed in Pittsburgh.

Although I doubt that McConnell’s answer satisfied anyone in the room, he segued into comments about the episcopate in our church, which were more reassuring. He called the church’s model of episcopal ministry “less than collaborative,” and, although it is largely shaped by canon, he said, “My own sense is that model is almost gone.” It is, he asserted, on the wrong side of both mission and economics.

In actuality, McConnell did more listening than talking—probably not a bad strategy—and he did say some things people seemed happy to hear. For example, he expressed the hope that the diocese would become more proactive in getting out its own message and not simply trying to counter statements from the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

In response to a question about engaging youth, McConnell suggested that evangelicals have concentrated on the faith of individuals and progressives have focused on society. The two concerns “have gotten pulled apart,” he said, but young people are looking for a faith that is both “spiritually vital and socially engaged.”

Thoughts on the Meeting

Last night’s discussion was cordial, and I suspect that many left Redeemer in a hopeful frame of mind, anticipating a more coöperative, less imperial Pittsburgh episcopate. PEP will be watching, not without some anxiety.

In particular, if a trial liturgy is approved for same-sex blessings and Pittsburgh parishes are not allowed to use it, I believe the prohibition will be taken as a sign that the new bishop is intent on returning the diocese to the bad ol’ days from which we thought we had been delivered. I sincerely hope that no one wants that.

In any case, the role of PEP was articulated in a new statement of purpose handed out at the meeting. You can read it here. No further comment seems necessary.

Changes Coming to Pittsburgh Diocese

Calvary Rector to Retire

The Rev. Canon Dr. Harold T. Lewis has announced that he will be retiring from his current position as rector of Pittsburgh’s Calvary Church. He plans to devote his time to writing. Lewis is the author of several books and numerous hymns. He will perhaps remain best known in Pittsburgh for the lawsuit he initiated against then bishop Robert Duncan and other diocesan leaders in 2003. The litigation resulted in the parties signing a stipulation two years later. That agreement was responsible for the court’s awarding diocesan property to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh after Duncan supporters voted to leave The Episcopal Church in 2008.

St. David’s to Return as Episcopal Parish

I noted on March 26, 2012, that the parish property of St. David’s, in Peters Township, is to be returned to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh later this month by the congregation—part of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh—currently occupying the building. There has been much speculation as to the future of the property, on which there is a substantial mortgage.

As it happens, not everyone will be leaving Peters Township to begin worshiping in an unused Roman Catholic church in Canonsburg on May 27. Some people will be staying behind to become the congregation of a restored St. David’s Episcopal Church. Initially, the congregation is expected to number somewhere in the 30s, but it is likely that former parishioners who have stayed away from St. David’s during its “Anglican” period will return. Others may be drawn to a more mainstream Episcopal church from the residential neighborhoods surrounding the East McMurray Road property.

St. David’s, for the time being at least, will not have its own priest. Instead, two priests from my own parish, St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, will conduct services at St. David’s. Rector Lou Hays and associate rector Kris McInnes (who grew up at St. David’s) will alternate performing duties at the nearby church. This is made practical by the addition of Michelle Boomgaard to the St. Paul’s staff as associate rector. The recently ordained Boomgaard has been serving as an assistant at Church of the Redeemer, in Squirrel Hill. A grant from the diocese is allowing St. Paul’s to replace Mabel Fanguy, a part-time priest who left St. Paul’s recently, with the full-time Boomgaard.

Episcopal services return to St. David’s on Pentecost, May 27.

Update, 5/15/2012: A letter to “My sisters and brothers in Christ” from Harold Lewis arrived in the mail this morning announcing the upcoming retirement of Calvary’s rector after sixteen years. According to the letter, Lewis’s resignation takes effect February 28, 2013, but his last Sunday will be November 25, 2012. He and his wife Claudette plan to remain in Pittsburgh after his retirement.

Three Silly Poems

Every now and then, my inner Ogden Nash comes to the fore and I begin thinking of poems lacking, well, gravity. Having written no poetry since Labor Day—I think that effort was pretty good, however—perhaps offering a few silly poems is better than letting yet another month pass without writing any poems at all.

So, here are three poems offered just for fun, rather than for inspiring sober reflection.

Casket

The element you’re prone to meet when you’re dead
Is lead.

Excess

To that stack of porno prints, might there be a link
To your printer’s being out of ink?
Ya think?

Persistence

Alchemists of old, I’m told,
Were keen on turning lead to gold.
That failure rates were very high
Did not convince them not to try.

You may have noticed that two atomic elements feature prominently in these poems. I was so pleased with my poem “Mercury” that I’ve long thought of writing a series of poems about each of the atomic elements. It’s easy to understand why no one has done this before, however. Rhyming words like “molybdenum” and “praseodymium” would have taxed even the talents of the real Ogden Nash. Anyway, thoughts of the Periodic Table were, in part, responsible for two of the three efforts.

Is It Possible to Reject the Anglican Covenant?

In its upcoming General Convention in July, The Episcopal Church will have to decide how it will deal with the Anglican Covenant. Although we know of two resolutions—both sponsored by bishops—that would put The Episcopal Church on a clear path to adopting the Covenant, it is widely believed that the 2012 General Convention will not go in that direction.

If The Episcopal Church neither adopts the Covenant nor commits to doing so, what are the alternatives? Four basic approaches have been suggested: (1) ignore the Covenant, (2) defer a decision on the pact, (3) gently say no, or (4) reject the Covenant definitively.

Any resolution likely to be passed in Indianapolis, irrespective of its overall thrust, will assuredly emphasize the desire of our church to remain in the Anglican Communion, even if it is somewhat vague about what that means. One proposed strategy for General Convention is for the church only to affirm our commitment to the Anglican Communion, saying nothing at all about the Anglican Covenant.

The obvious drawback to this strategy is that it will be interpreted by our sister churches for what it is—passive-aggressive. It is well-known that only the General Convention can decide on the Covenant on behalf of The Episcopal Church, and it is equally well-known that the Covenant has been extensively studied. All the Anglican churches have been asked to consider the Covenant. To fail to do so will be seen as arrogant.

Likewise, deliberately postponing a decision will be seen as insincere or irresponsible. The General Convention went along with the Windsor Report in 2006 and agreed (sort of) not to consecrate any partnered gay bishops. In 2009, it accepted the Covenant design project without objection. The expectation is that it is now time for the General Convention to make a decision, not simply kick the can down the road yet again in the hope that we can forever avoid acting like adults.

Then there are the resolutions that say no thanks to the Covenant but don’t quite slam the door. Resolution A126, from Executive Council, is in this category. This resolution begins by expressing “profound gratitude” to those who labored on the Covenant. It then offers the obligatory commitment to the Communion before it pledges the church to “recommit itself to dialogue with the several provinces when adopting innovations that may be seen as threatening to the unity of the Communion. It declares that the church is “unable to adopt the Anglican Covenant in its present form.” In other words, the resolution first accepts an obligation that is one of the most objectionable features of the Covenant, after which it implies that the church might be able to accept a covenant in a somewhat different form.

All of the aforementioned approaches seem designed to keep The Episcopal Church “still in the process of adoption.” In particular, §4.2.8 of the Covenant text reads

Participation in the decision making of the Standing Committee or of the Instruments of Communion in respect to section 4.2 [The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution] shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.

One has to ask, however, why we even want Episcopalians to participate in the disciplinary process of §4.2, a process that I, for one, find to be un-Anglican and an invitation to mischief. (Note that rejection of the Covenant, per se, does not remove a church from the Communion nor its members from the Instruments.) Some have argued that, by being at the table, our representatives can vote against applying sanctions. But participating in the process lends it legitimacy I believe we do not want to grant. Further, it seems cynical to put ourselves in a position where The Episcopal Church cannot be disciplined but can participate in the disciplining of other churches.

This brings us to the final approach, which attempts to say a definitive no to the Covenant. I place the model resolution from the No Anglican Covenant Coalition in this category. This resolution avoids expressing gratitude for that for which we are conspicuously not grateful, declares allegiance to the kind of Communion we actually want, suggests that we find ways of strengthening that Communion, and declares that we “decline to adopt” the Covenant for good and sufficient reasons.

In the end, however, we have to ask if it is actually possible to reject the Covenant. Before Church of England dioceses determined that Covenant adoption would not return to the current General Synod, I speculated whether, in such a situation would nevertheless leave the Church of England “still in the process of adoption.” (See “What If the Church of England Votes Against the Covenant?”)

Like so many other concepts, the Anglican Covenant fails to define what it means to be “still in the process of adoption.” This really indicates a lack of imagination on the part of the Covenant drafters, who clearly believed, contrary to all reason, that all Communion churches would quickly adopt the Covenant simply because the Archbishop of Canterbury asked them to do so.

Is the Church of England “still in the process of adoption”? I don’t know. In principal, the Church of England could reconsider the matter when a new General Synod is seated in 2015.  Even if General Convention 2012 resolves, in the words of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition resolution, to “decline to adopt” the Covenant, it might still be “in the process of adoption.” After all, with no time limits on Covenant adoption, the 2015 General Convention could, in principle, revisit Covenant adoption. In fact, the 2012 General Convention cannot bind future General Conventions to not take up Covenant adoption. Therefore, I suggest that it is probably impossible to remove our church from being “still in the process of adoption.”

The reality is that the Anglican Covenant has the potential to haunt the Anglican Communion forever. The only way to escape its malevolent influence is to encourage churches to reject it and to encourage the churches that have adopted it to withdraw, as provided for in  §4.3.1:

Any covenanting Church may decide to withdraw from the Covenant. Although such withdrawal does not imply an automatic withdrawal from the Instruments of Communion or a repudiation of its Anglican character, it may raise a question relating to the meaning of the Covenant, and of compatibility with the principles incorporated within it, and trigger the provisions set out in section 4.2 above.

Ironically, even withdrawal from the Covenant seems as though it might trigger repercussions.

The Pope and the Saints

I am listening to a discussion on NPR about the bounties offered to New Orleans Saints defensive players to take out opposing players and about the penalties imposed by the National Football League for the incentive system to injure opponents. To date, I have neither read nor heard any defense of the Saints’ program. There is, of course, some irony in the name of the team caught in what is generally considered unethical—perhaps even sinful—behavior.

To add further irony to the day, while listening to Tell Me More, I encountered a link to a story on the Mail Online Web site. The story is titled “Pope Benedict XVI makes £150,000 donation to ‘disaffected’ Anglican church so it can convert to Catholicism.” Anglican readers, without my help, can figure out the content of the story.

Question for the day: How is what Pope Benedict XVI did any different from what the Saints did?

Extra Credit Question: Who imposes penalties on the Pope for unsportsmanlike conduct?

Making Commenting Easier

I made some changes to Lionel Deimel’s Web Log today that should make commenting easier. I had received a number of complaints from people who had had a hard time leaving a comment or who had been unable to leave a comment at all.

First, I eliminated the need to deal with a CAPTCHA, the challenge-response puzzle that sometimes drove people—I include myself here—crazy.

Second, I reconfigured the blog to put comments on the same page as the corresponding post. I think the new system will be easier to use. The post itself will remain readily available to commenters. Note that, if you don’t see a place to enter a comment, click on the # Comments link, where # is a number, possibly 0.

Third, I changed the way images are displayed when you click on them. This actually has nothing to do with comments, and most readers will not notice a change.

I hope the changes will make reading and interacting with Lionel Deimel’s Web Log a more pleasurable experience.

Let the Confessing Anglicans Confess—Somewhere Else

Paul Bagshaw has been reading the FoCA tea leaves over on his blog Not the same stream. FoCA, of course, is the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, which has just finished meeting in London. The FoCA folks are the Calvinist fringe of the Anglican Communion, who mistakenly believe that they represent authentic (“orthodox”) Anglicanism.

Paul’s analysis is quite helpful, as it provides a flavor of what the FoCA crowd is up to, thereby saving you the painful task of reading the tiresome, repetitive drivel they turn out.

I was struck by this depressing observation:

Therefore there will be no schism in the sense of one organization separating itself out from another on a certain day, followed immediately by either or both bodies setting up new structures and legal identities.

Instead there will be a steady continued tearing of the fabric as distinct ecclesial units (parishes, dioceses and provinces as well as individuals) align themselves explicitly with the FoCA. The legalities will depend on the law of each country (property and pensions being governed by secular law) and on the ecclesiastical structure of each Church.

One can quibble about what is and is not schism. And one can speculate as to whether a formal break of FoCA from the Anglican Communion wouldn’t be good for all concerned. I suspect that FoCA sees some drawbacks to a clean break from the Communion. It would be easy for a Nigeria or Uganda to abandon the Communion, but what about a Diocese of Sydney? And what about individual parishes? Like the Anglican Church in North America, FoCA is parasitic and is trying to rustle as many sheep as it can wherever they can be found.

Nonetheless, people have been asking for quite a while whether some churches of the Anglican Communion will actually leave the Communion or whether, for all practical purposes, they already have.

I am inclined to view the Communion as having already split, and believe that it might be time to recognize the new reality. The Anglican Communion is not, in fact, the group of churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury (or, for that matter, the Church of England). England has communion agreements with other churches that have never been considered either Anglican or part of the Anglican Communion. But does it, in fact, make sense to have an Anglican Communion in which it is not the case that every church in it is in communion with every other church?

I don’t know that The Episcopal Church has ever declared broken communion with another church. We did not even do so when Southerners broke away from The Episcopal Church during the Civil War. But the situation is different with, say, the Church of the Province of Uganda, which claims no longer to be in communion with The Episcopal Church. Is The Episcopal Church in communion with the Church of the Province of Uganda nonetheless? Of course not. Being in communion is a symmetric relation. A in communion with B implies that B must also be in communion with A. The Episcopal Church cannot impose communion on its Ugandan counterpart. This is like friendship. I cannot legitimately claim I am Joe’s friend if Joe has publicly declared that I am not his friend and has acted accordingly.

The Episcopal Church should acknowledge the obvious: we are not in communion with Anglican Communion churches that have broken off communion with us. Moreover, an Archbishop of Canterbury who was interested in real, rather than faux, unity of the Anglican Communion would make it clear that a church cannot be in the Anglican Communion if it is not in communion with all the sister churches of the fellowship.

Let’s get on with the Anglican divorce, so we can get beyond the bickering with which the Calvinists have tied the Communion in knots in the past decade or so.