LGBT, Etc.

We used to talk about gays. Then it was gays and lesbians. At some point, we switched to using abbreviations. For a long time, the most common term one encountered in print was the abbreviation LGBT—the letters were sometimes permuted—which adds bisexual and transgender people to the grouping. Not long ago, I began seeing LGBTQ. Some people claim that the Q stands for queer—I’m still not sure what that is—but others say it stands for questioning. The other day, I encountered LGBTQI. The I stands for intersex. It’s surprising that it took so long for that letter I to show up, since intersex people are the easiest variant of humanity to identify with total objectivity. But I digress.

Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ridiculous? We’re running out of letters, people.

I understand that (1) people are looking for a substantive that is concise, and (2) they don’t want to leave anybody who isn’t “normal” out. No doubt, there are people ready to add yet another letter to the standard abbreviation while arguing that they belong to a forgotten and persecuted group.

Isn’t it time to adopt a term that is once-and-for-all general and not simply an enumeration of every conceivable human variant? I suggest that we begin referring to sexual minorities. No one argues that the referents of LGBTQI constitute a majority of the population. Saying that one is part of a minority is not pejorative, it is merely descriptive. One can quibble about physical versus mental classifications—distinctions between sex and gender, perhaps—but sexual seems sufficiently generic, and sexual/gender minorities seems unnecessarily technical and verbally cumbersome. It is not, of course, as cumbersome as LGBTQI, an abbreviation with insufficient vowels to be transformed into a usable acronym.

I think that the term sexual minorities may come with political benefits. As the commonly used string of letters gets longer and longer, people who have a hard time getting past the male-female dichotomy become confused and increasingly skeptical of the implied claims. On the other hand, the U.S. has a history of expending rights to more and more groups. For many people, the idea of empowering minorities, whatever those minorities are, seems very American and just. (Admittedly, this is not true of everyone.)

The term sexual minorities thus seems euphonic, inclusive, and rhetorically powerful.

Any thoughts on the subject?

Additional Thoughts on the Meeting of the Primates

My friend Tobias Haller has written one of the more insightful descriptions of what happened in the Anglican Communion recently. Permit me to quote extensively and shamelessly from his essay “The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politicks” (Episcopalians should get Tobias’s reference):

So what have we? On the one hand we have a body, founded in 1789 and in continuous existence since, with duly elected members called and assembled, which by its constitutional authority and in keeping with its governing law has adopted a policy which concerns no entity other than itself.

On the other hand we have a group, first assembled in 1978, meeting sporadically since, this time ’round in an irregularly convened ad hoc session; with at least one voting member improperly credentialed; having no constitutional authority whatsoever; described as recently as 2004 in The Windsor Report (¶ 104) as having until then “refused to acknowledge anything more than a consultative and advisory authority” for itself—now presuming an enhanced capacity to deem the imposition of consequences upon the aforementioned body over whom they have no authority, because of their policy change.

This must be what some people mean by “Godly order.” Seems relatively ungodly to me, and far from orderly. If this were the political realm, I’d call the latter a junta and their action an attempted coup.

(If almost none of the foregoing makes any sense to you, dear reader, you are likely not an Anglican and have no reason to continue reading.)

The Primates and the Covenant

Everything Tobias says is true; the primates had no authority to discipline The Episcopal Church. What happened in Canterbury was even more insidious than he suggests, however.

The Anglican Covenant, which has been adopted by only a few of the less prominent churches of the Anglican Communion and is widely viewed as a failed project, has been criticized mostly for its fourth section, “Our Covenanted Life Together.” Section 4.2, “The Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution” sets out how churches can raise questions about the meaning of the Covenant  or “about the compatibility of an action by a covenanting Church with the Covenant.” The document specifies quasi-judicial procedures for resolving such issues. The diagrams below, taken from my 2010 post “Section 4 Decoded,” show the relationships and procedures specified in the Covenant for resolving questions or disputes. (Click on either diagram for a larger image.)

 

Readers may also want to review my post “If it looks like a duck…” for additional analysis of the disciplinary procedures set out in the Covenant.

I do not mean for readers to study the above diagrams. What is important to note is that (1) the Standing Committee, in consultation with other bodies, is responsible for evaluating allegations by one church against another and for suggesting “relational consequences,” (2) the Primates’ Meeting (or the primates, meeting) have no such authority, and (3) the Covenant suggests that adjudicating disputes is a careful, deliberative process, not the product of the sort of ad hoc kangaroo court that began two weeks ago.

In other words, although most Anglican churches have not adopted the Covenant, including The Episcopal Church and its accusers, the absence of the pact has led to the use of a procedure even less fair than was called for in Section 4 of the Covenant, a procedure completely lacking in formal authority, justice, or transparency.

A number of churches whose primates attended the meeting in Canterbury have adopted the Covenant—see list here. Admittedly, the church against which charges were being leveled had not adopted the Covenant, but why did none of the primates of covenanted churches suggest that procedures more like those set out in the Covenant be used in deciding what was to be done with complaints against The Episcopal Church?

Nothing was legitimate about the recent meeting. The ACNA archbishop, Foley Beach, was invited by Justin Welby as an inducement to get some of the more radical primates to attend. Beach is not and Anglican primate and may never be one, but he was even allowed to vote at the meeting—on the agenda, at any rate. (See Foley statement here.) His invitation was only the first indication that Welby was willing to do anything for some illusory “unity” within the Communion. Welby’s willingness to let the primates set the agenda—an agenda certain to be dominated by the desire to punish The Episcopal Church—was another concession. Welby was even amenable to describing the meeting as other than an instance of the Primates’ Meeting in order to allow certain primates to save face, even though, logically, that suggested that the meeting had no legitimacy at all. Welby’s introductory message made it clear that the American church was in for a rough ride.

The most distressing outcome of the meeting of the primates is that it is self-validating. If the primates can do what they did with the aid and comfort of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it must have been a valid action, one that can be a template for dealing with conflict in the future. (Just wait until the Church of England finally allows same-sex marriage!) Interestingly, Welby refused to describe the actions against The Episcopal Church “sanctions.” Instead, they are “consequences,” a term used in the Covenant.

African primates have often complained that actions of The Episcopal Church reflect poorly on their churches in the eyes of homophobic Islamists. This problem is of their own making. They always had the option of claiming plausible deniability, that they had no control over the what other Anglican churches do. They have now lost that option by exercising—or asserting to be exercising—control over The Episcopal Church. They can now be blamed for the fact that The Episcopal Church will not recant, but will only continue on the path it has followed for decades.

BBC: We Admit We’re Wrong, but So Are Others, So It’s OK

Regular readers will recall that I complained to the BBC about the use of the term “Anglican Church” where “Anglican Communion” is meant. (See “Complaint to the BBC.”) Since I submitted my complaint, I received two messages acknowledging my comment and telling me to be patient—the BBC considers all complaints thoughtfully.

Today I received the ultimate reply to my January 11 note to the BBC, which I reproduce here verbatim:

Dear Mr Deimel

Reference CAS-3655633-CH5BS0

Thanks for getting in touch regarding the use of the term ‘Anglican Church’.

We understand you feel this is incorrect usage and the BBC should refer to the ‘Anglican Communion’ instead.

We appreciate that the Anglican Communion is made up of a group of churches with links with the Archbishop of Canterbury however the term ‘Anglican Church’ is sometimes used and understood with the same meaning.

We appreciate your feedback regarding the correct usage. All complaints are sent to senior management and our programme makers every morning and we included your points in this overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure your complaint is seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future reporting.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind regards

David Glenday

BBC Complaints

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

So, the BBC admits, at the very least, that its use of “Anglican Church” is imprecise. Its defense is that others also use this formulation.

Indeed, it is true that others use “Anglican Church” to refer to the Anglican Communion. In fact, Archbishops of Canterbury—certainly the incumbent and his predecessor—have used it and, I suspect, actually know better.

Use of “Anglican Church” to mean “Anglican Communion” is not just a personal preference or dialectical variation. Instead, it represents deliberate political manipulation through misleading language intended to encourage uniformity of belief throughout the Communion.

Referring to the Anglican Communion as a church subtly suggests that the component national and regional churches, along with a few extra-provincial dioceses, should act as a unified whole, sharing common doctrine and dogma. This is the sort of mistaken thinking that motivated the primates recently to demand that The Episcopal Church be punished.

But the Anglican Communion is not a church. It has been a fellowship of churches, and, at least for the moment, is not a worldwide church.

The BBC excuses its behavior as being no different from that of others. No doubt, its “senior management” feels comfortable following the lead of Justin Welby. It’s too bad that the BBC uses this excuse to eschew objectivity in favor of spewing propaganda.

No doubt, the BBC, like many English leaders, just cannot let the Empire go.

The Rev. Diane Shepard on the Action of the Anglican Primates

Today, my friend and fellow PEP (Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh) member Diane Shepard sent the message below to the PEP e-mail list. Episcopalians in this diocese have fought valiantly for The Episcopal Church and what it stands for. We are ready to do so again.

 
January 16, 2016

Friends,

Word that the Anglican Communion primates have voted to impose sanctions on The Episcopal Church opens again the wounds from more than a decade ago when many of the primates were enraged by the consecration of a man in a gay partnership, Gene Robinson, as bishop. This Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh became the epicenter of a schism within our Episcopal Church with nationwide results. The bishop of this diocese led the schism. Many of us fought this schism both with our words, our pleas to the national leadership of our church, our money to support churches remaining loyal to the greater Episcopal Church, and in the secular civil courts. Much anger, anxiety, grief, tension between one another, and abiding outrage resulted. This word from the Anglican Communion opens those wounds again—including the huge wound of its insult to so many among us who know themselves as Christian and part of a sexual minority.

I am outraged, also, by word of these sanctions coming from our brothers and sisters in the Faith. I do not believe the answer is to leave this Anglican Communion or even to hope that it dissolves. We have an enormous role in that Communion to witness—to witness to what we know and have been shown to be true, in faith—that sexual identity or choice of a life partner does not define or limit our ability to be faithful and responsible Christian people. Our witness is of extreme importance now, as it has been, especially for those in any place or church who are being excluded from the Christian faith community or persecuted because of their sexual orientation.

How we bear this witness is an important discussion for us here in this Diocese of Pittsburgh. Our outrage is a powerful emotion. My prayer is that we can use this outrage to see more clearly the serious issues of discrimination as they poison us all and to encourage and protect those who are hurting because of that discrimination that comes in so many forms.

The Rev. Diane Shepard
Priest, Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh

Abuse of Anglican Power: Where Do We Go from Here?

One day before the official end of the current meeting of the Anglican primates at Canterbury, the result of the primates’ deliberations has been leaked. Under the circumstances, the Communion has chosen to release the primates’ statement officially. It can be found here, but it is also reproduced below. At the end of the statement, I will offer my immediate thoughts on this development.

Statement from Primates 2016

14 Jan 2016

Today the Primates agreed how they would walk together in the grace and love of Christ. This agreement acknowledges the significant distance that remains but confirms their unanimous commitment to walk together.

The Primates regret that it appears that this document has been leaked in advance of their communiqué tomorrow. In order to avoid speculation the document is being released in full. This agreement demonstrates the commitment of all the Primates to continue the life of the Communion with neither victor nor vanquished.

Questions and further comments will be responded to at a press conference tomorrow at 1500. Full details are available here.

The full text is as follows:

1. We gathered as Anglican Primates to pray and consider how we may preserve our unity in Christ given the ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of marriage.


2. Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation.


3. All of us acknowledge that these developments have caused further deep pain throughout our Communion.
   


4. The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.


5. In keeping with the consistent position of previous Primates’ meetings such unilateral actions on a matter of doctrine without Catholic unity is considered by many of us as a departure from the mutual accountability and interdependence implied through being in relationship with each other in the Anglican Communion.
   


6. Such actions further impair our communion and create a deeper mistrust between us. This results in significant distance between us and places huge strains on the functioning of the Instruments of Communion and the ways in which we express our historic and ongoing relationships.
   


7. It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.
   


8. We have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Task Group to maintain conversation among ourselves with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences, ensuring they are held between us in the love and grace of Christ.

A Look at the Details

Let me begin by taking the individual points at face value.

Point 1 is merely a statement of fact. It acknowledges, fairly, “ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of marriage.” What is immediately interesting, however, is that complaints about gay bishops have been dropped. Furthermore, as is apparent as one reads on, the Anglican Church of Canada, in which rites were approved for blessing same-sex unions even before Gene Robinson was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of New Hampshire, has also disappeared from the primatial radar.

Point 2 is more specific as to what is upsetting some of the primates, namely the Episcopal Church’s changes regarding same-sex marriage. Again, it is fair to say that these developments “represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage.” On can quibble about the adjective “fundamental,” I suppose, but the assertion is essentially true. Notice that the statement does not assert that this development is wrong.

In the next sentence, we see what the militant traditionalist primates are especially worried about: “Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation.” In particular, the Anglican Church of Canada will consider same-sex marriage in its General Synod this July. Other churches may follow the lead of the American church, but Canada could well be the next Anglican domino to fall. The conservatives have held out to the Anglican Church of Canada both a carrot and a stick, letting bygones be bygones, while implying that, if Canada does follow The Episcopal Church, it, too, will suffer the wrath of the Anglican reactionaries.

Point 3 is again objective, and not a statement to which Presiding Bishop Michael Curry had a pressing need to object. (Anglican have been pained, but one might quibble about our causing it. They chose to be upset, but I’ll let that pass.)

Point 4 makes explicit the traditional teaching referenced in paragraph 2. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of “[t]he majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”

Likewise, I assume that point 5 is also true. It does not represent the understanding of The Episcopal Church, but probably does capture the thinking of “many of us.” It is interesting that not even a majority view is claimed here.

Beginning with point 6, things get a bit dicier, moving toward accusations, rather than simple statements of fact. It is surely true that the more conservative churches cannot trust The Episcopal Church to act as they would have the church act. On the other hand, I would argue that developments in The Episcopal Church over the last 40 years or so have moved slowly but inexorably in one particular direction. The last thing The Episcopal Church has been is surprising. Over the years, our church has been tolerant of outrageous behavior of other Anglican Churches, but we have not been accorded the same respect.

The real problem here is that there are diametrically opposed visions of the Anglican Communion among its leaders. The conservative African churches particularly want to see a doctrinally homogeneous grouping of provinces with a theology and morality consistent with their own. Ironically, they are lashing out against their heritage of colonialism by embracing the very defective theology imposed on them by their colonial masters! Also ironically, it is America, not Great Britain, that is the target of their ire.

The Episcopal Church (and its less vocal sister Western churches), despite its grave misgivings regarding the theology and morality, to say nothing of the political actions, of conservative Anglican churches, has been content to see a diverse Anglican Communion that is sometimes useful, even though those times are becoming less frequent.

Unfortunately, the statement from the primates shows no evidence of explicit agreement on the desired nature of the Anglican Communion. Conflict will continue and will likely become more intense in future years. One wonders if the general nature of the Communion was considered at all. I had thought this was the principle purpose of the meeting, but the meeting was obviously hijacked by the militants.

Point 7 gets to the real heart of this statement. We are being told that it is the “unanimous desire” of the primates “to walk together,” but this is belied by what follows. Specifically, for a period of three years—presumably so that the 2018 General Convention can come to see things as the reactionary Africans do—the primates require that:

1. The Episcopal Church not represent “us”—I assume that what is meant here is the Anglican Communion—in ecumenical and interfaith bodies.
2. The Episcopal Church—presumably what is meant here is representatives of The Episcopal Church—not be appointed or elected to Anglican Communion bodies.
3. Episcopalians—this is again an inference, as the grammar is defective—not take part in decision-making on matters of doctrine or polity when participating in Anglican bodies.

I will defer further comment on this to the next section.

Finally, in point 8, the primates note that they have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury “to appoint a Task Group” that is somehow supposed to make everything better. I have no idea how this is intended to work. Especially, I have no idea if the body will contain any Episcopalians.

Notice, in any case, that the primates have made demands of The Episcopal Church but have only make a request of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Analysis

I must begin by observing that no one has given the primates the power to make the demands they have made. The Primates’ Meeting was first established for “leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation.” Whereas the meeting has been asked “to exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters” (Resolution 18 from the 1988 Lambeth Conference), it was given no actual power. Moreover, traditionally, Lambeth Conference resolutions are likewise only advisory, so the bishops gathered at Lambeth had no power to bestow.

The action of the primates in 2016 is nothing more than a power grab, an abuse of the primates’ respective offices. We might have expected Justin Welby to be the adult in the room, but it quickly became apparent from his obsequious and pandering opening message that the notion of a “looser” grouping of Communion churches was being jettisoned in favor of keeping the conservatives happy and dumping on the long-suffering Episcopalians. (I have often claimed that Anglicans suffer from pathological niceness. Clearly, some Anglicans have conquered that fault.)

I believe that all the demands of the primates are illegitimate, as they are beyond their remit (as the British would say). Putting that aside for the moment, I will say a few things about those demands.

Keeping Episcopalians off ecumenical and interfaith groups has a certain logic to it, as The Episcopal Church is, in a sense, not representative of the Anglican Communion. At least, this makes sense from the world view of the militant traditionalists. From an Episcopal Church perspective, the Anglican Communion is (or should be) a diverse body, and representing it to the outside world as one embracing a single body of doctrine and practice is a misrepresentation.

There is some ambiguity in point 7. On first reading, it seems that Episcopalians are not to be added to the various Communion bodies, but Episcopalians already on such bodies are not to be cashiered. On the other hand, they cannot participate in discussion of doctrine or (presumably, Anglican Communion) polity. Does this mean that an Episcopalian whose term on an Anglican body has expired cannot be replaced? It probably does, so the voice of Episcopalians will gradually be diminished over the three-year sentence the primates intend to impose.

The insincerity here is monumental. The primates want to “walk together,” but, since their minds are made up—after all, they know the will of God, who, seemingly, forgot to explain it to Episcopalians—they really don’t want to hear anything from The Episcopal Church. I suspect that the GAFCON primates would just as soon have ejected The Episcopal Church from the Communion. No doubt, cooler heads (and readers of the Anglican Communion balance sheet) prevailed.

I have no hope for the proposed Task Group. There is no indication that the conservative primates are going to change their minds about same-sex marriage in the next three years, and neither are the Presiding Bishop or the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. Serving on the Task Group is a fool’s errand. The project is doomed, as perhaps is the Anglican Communion.

I am eagerly awaiting the final communiqué from the meeting, assuming that there is one. I had hoped that Michael Curry would not lend his name in any form to an action penalizing his church. If he does not repudiate the statement currently before the world, however, it appears that he has and that he has failed his first major test as a champion of The Episcopal Church.

Episcopal News Service has published a story in which the presiding bishop expresses the pain that the sanctions of the primates will cause Episcopalians. This is all well and good, but what is needed is his repudiation of the actions of the primates as abusive and unnecessary. According to ENS, “Curry told the primates that he was in no sense comparing his own pain to theirs.” Actually, I suspect that Episcopalians have felt considerably more pain from the actions of the Anglican Communion and the American allies of the Africans who have stolen property and souls from the church than the ordinary Nigerian or Ugandan or Rwandan Anglican. Pittsburghers could say a lot about their pain.

What Do We Do Now?

As I said, I am eagerly awaiting the concluding scenes of the revolting drama being played out in Canterbury. I reserve the right to change my mind, but I will offer a few thoughts. (I’m giving up, at least for the moment, trying to read all the commentary and news reports from Canterbury.)

I believe that The Episcopal Church should make it clear that we believe the primates had no right to do what they have done. Executive Council should make a statement to this effect. Moreover, it should reconsider funds set aside to support the infrastructure of the Anglican Communion. Executive Council should reconsider our relationships to churches of primates who voted to sanction The Episcopal Church.

Although we cannot compel the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint Episcopalians, Episcopalians on Anglican bodies should continue to serve (or attempt to continue to serve). They should insist on participating in all discussions and decision-making. We should appoint successors to Episcopalians whose tenure on Anglican bodies is expiring.

No doubt, many will advise that we meekly accept the punishment meted out by the primates, arguing that it would be the Christ-like thing to do. I strongly disagree. If we truly believe that our LGBT brothers and sisters are equally children of God and deserve to be full members of Christ’s body, we should avoid selling them down the river yet again. Our actions can not only affect our own church, but also the Canadian and other churches that have not yet fully embraced all people, no mater what their sexual and gender identities.

I have little hope for an Anglican Communion led as it is by an archbishop who takes pride in his church’s success in, for example, preserving its permission to discriminate against gay couples. In three years, the Anglican Communion is likely to be pretty much where it is now, and the hostility of the militant traditionalists will continue. (See the statement from GAFCON on the meeting.)

Justin Welby’s intention to reduce tensions by building a looser Communion has been abandoned for lockstep orthodoxy. I believe the future of authentic Anglicanism will lie with an American Anglican Communion. The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans will be free to make its own way in the world.

A Final Note

There was good news and bad news from Canterbury concerning the Anglican Church in North America. The good news is that there was no move to integrate ACNA—other, that is, than as a puppet master of third-world Anglican churches—into the Anglican Communion. The bad news is that Archbishop Foley Beach fully participated in the meeting, possibly except in the voting. It seems only a matter of time before ACNA becomes part of the Communion. If and when that happens, I believe we cannot continue to be members of Justin Welby’s happy band.

Complaint to the BBC

The BBC rather consistently uses the term “Anglican Church” when what is meant is the Anglican Communion. This has bothered me for a long time. Today, Anglican Ink published a transcript of a BBC Radio 4 interview with Justin Welby from this morning. The interviewer used the term “Anglican Church,” and I decided it was time to lodge a formal complaint. I submitted the note below on the BBC Web site. (It was a rather tedious process, by the way.) I have transcribed my complaint verbatim, except that I have substituted italics for all caps. (The BBC site apparently does not understand HTML tags.) I am awaiting a reply.

The BBC consistently uses the term “Anglican Church” to refer (presumably) to the Anglican Communion. I encountered this usage recently on “World News” and in the December 11 BBC Radio 4 interview of Justin Welby.

In fact, there is no “Anglican Church.” The Anglican Communion, on the other hand, is a Fellowship of autonomous churches of varying polity and using diverse liturgies. After this week, of course, it may not even be that.

In any case, use of the term “Anglican Church” when what is meant is “Anglican Communion” is incorrect, misleading, and prejudicial. There are Anglicans within the Communion who would like there to be a worldwide Anglican church espousing consistent, reactionary doctrine beyond the influence of modern society. I doubt that the BBC means to promote that view of the Communion. I would hope that the BBC would strive for greater precision and objectivity.

The term “Anglican Church” might be appropriate when referring to a particular national or regional church, such as the Church of England. Even in that context, however, the usage can be misleading.

I hope that the BBC will drop the use of “Anglican Church” and use “Anglican Communion” when the fellowship of national and regional Anglican churches is intended.

Update, 1/26/2016. I received a reply from the BBC. You can read it here.

Showdown at Theological Gap

All things being equal, tomorrow, January 11, 2016, the 38 primates of the Anglican Communion will meet at Lambeth Palace to consider various matters of concern. A variety of issues may be discussed, but the only one likely to figure in future histories of Anglicanism is the nature of the Communion itself and the relationships among its member churches.

I have already written about the upcoming meeting—see “Anglican Communion II?,” “Justin Welby on the Hot Seat,” “Parallel Anglican Universes?,” and “A Letter to Michael Curry”—and I see no reason to retract anything I have already put into print. There have been too many statements and commentaries appearing since my last post, however, to try either to summarize, reply to, or even cite, but I do want to offer a few last-minute thoughts.

 When I first heard the announcement of the meeting, I thought it odd. Why would Justin Welby risk his reputation on such a high-risk enterprise? There may be a certain bit of hubris involved, but I think that the Archbishop of Canterbury, having personally visited all the churches of the Communion, concluded that his chances of bringing any semblance of peace to the Anglican world were not going to get any better in the future. Perhaps it was time to go all in. That may have been a rational decision, but Welby appears to be rather more sanguine than he has any right to be.

A number of GAFCON primates are threatening to walk out of the meeting—perhaps even out of the Communion itself—if they get no satisfaction of their demands that The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada be either disciplined or ejected from the Communion for their departures from “biblical orthodoxy.” That, of course, is not going to happen. The primates of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada will offer no substantive apology for their churches’ actions regarding women, homosexuals, or the transgendered. They neither will nor can undo what their churches have done. Michael Curry and Fred Hiltz can do little more than say “we’re sorry you feel that way.”

Tomorrow’s meeting is really a showdown at Theological Gap. In all too many cases, the theological differences between Western and Global South churches are simply too great to bridge. If Anglican unity requires that that gap be eliminated—I believe it should not—then the Communion will fall apart.

This showdown, though long in coming, was inevitable. It became so at the 1998 Lambeth Conference when, under the leadership of George Carey (or the lack thereof), Resolution I.10 was passed, thereby giving militant traditionalists a potent weapon to use against what had been mainstream Anglicanism. The forces of reaction have promoted I.10 as the unassailable “teaching” of the Communion. The resolution became an explicit assumption of the Windsor Report and of the ill-considered Anglican Covenant that followed. Those angry reactionaries are now moving in for the kill, but they have overplayed their hand, if only because the Primates’ Meeting has no real power to do anything. If Western Anglicans are not to be abandoned by their leaders, it is time for Western primates to declare that Resolution I.10 was a mistake in 1998 and is doubly damnable in 2016.

If the GAFCON crew fails to get its way, as indeed it cannot, how can the most militant of the Global South primates not leave the meeting? It is difficult to see how they can possibly save face if they stay to the bitter end, and it is even more difficult to imagine a compromise that would not be interpreted as a defeat at the Armageddon they have arranged.

It is not clear what plans Justin Welby has for the meeting. He has not tipped his hand, and we know that he is holding at least one wild card, namely, the status of the Anglican Church in North America. Inviting the ACNA’s Archbishop Foley Beach to the meeting, even under ambiguous circumstances, was clearly a move intended to induce attendance of skeptical primates. A promise to integrate the upstart North American church into the Communion would clearly be a partial victory for the reactionaries and, alas, would probably not prompt Curry or Hiltz to threaten the departure of their churches from the Communion. Playing that card might, however tenuously, hold the Communion together in the very short run, though perhaps at a high price. If the centuries-old rule of non-overlapping jurisdictions is to be abandoned by the Communion, interesting possibilities will become available. Surely an Episcopal Church in England would be welcomed by same-sex couples seeking a church wedding!

I really have no idea how this meeting will end, though I doubt it can possibly end well. The best possible outcome may well be a formal split of the Communion into two disjoint groupings.

If you have nothing better to do, pray for a miracle.

Donald Trump is Mean

Click for larger image

Source of quotation:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2016/01/07/trump-campaign-lumbers-into-vermont/78375274/

George Bush Didn’t Keep Us Safe

I have been watching the Showtime documentary “The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs,” in which all 12 living CIA directors and others operatives are interviewed. I was struck by the brief segment below in which George W. Bush’s briefer on September 11, 2001, admits that the Bush administration did not keep the country safe. The documentary also illustrates how President Bush was warned by the CIA in the strongest terms that an attack was coming. The administration essentially did nothing.

Fresh Air ran an excellent segment on “The Spymasters.” You can find it here.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has continued to insist that his brother kept the country safe. Draw your own conclusions.

A Letter to Michael Curry

I wrote the letter below to the new presiding bishop last month out of concern for what might happen at the Primates’ Meeting in January. When I first heard that the Archbishop of Canterbury had called the meeting, my anxiety spiked. Would the meeting result in a looser, more irenic Communion, or would it re-ignite long-simmering conflicts? Would the meeting, in fact, begin the dismantling of the Communion?

The Anglican Covenent has widely been considered at a dead end. Unfortunately, no one in authority has acknowledged its failure, and zombie-like, the ill-conceived pact repeatedly seems to rise from the dead.

I decided to publish this letter after reading a post by Mark Harris responding to a rather incoherent essay from The Living Church promoting “Primatial option for the Covenant,” whatever that is, at next month’s gathering. Clearly, the Covenant still has its die-hard supporters.

It is time for The Episcopal Church to stand up for itself and reject the bullying of Global South primates. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is about to undergo an early trial by fire. I pray that he is keenly aware that, in large measure, he will not be among friends.

November 23, 2015

The Most Rev. Michael Curry
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Dear Presiding Bishop Michael Curry:

Greetings from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, a diocese that has suffered the depredations of schismatic Episcopalians and their allies in the wider Anglican Communion, particularly in the Global South.

I am writing out of concern for the possible outcome of the January Primates’ Meeting called by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I write as someone who labored to thwart the ambitions of Bishop Robert Duncan—I was the first president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh—and as the founder of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, which has worked to prevent attempts to impose a uniform “orthodoxy” throughout the Anglican Communion.

I cannot speak for all Episcopalians, but I do speak for many who love The Episcopal Church yet have seen it assaulted both from within and without for taking stands of which we believe Jesus would approve.

It would appear that the upcoming Primates’ Meeting will bring together bishops of widely divergent views. Archbishop Welby seeks to calm the troubled waters of the Communion through a degree of disengagement. On the other hand, some primates, particularly those associated with GAFCON, are continuing to demand that The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada renounce their departures from “orthodox Anglicanism” and commit themselves to “biblical Christianity.”

I have no doubt that you will defend our church against those who would transform it into yet another intolerant and self-righteous Protestant denomination, but I urge you to be more conspicuous in your defense of The Episcopal Church, if not more resolute, than your two predecessors.

In particular, I ask you to dissociate yourself and our church publicly from any communiqué emerging from the meeting if you disagree with its contents. You are, after all, a representative of The Episcopal Church, not of the Anglican primates. The Primates’ Meeting is not—must not be—the board of directors of the Anglican Communion.

The genius of Anglicanism is in part its willingness to depart from received tradition in order to minister meaningfully to God’s people in particular places. If that is unacceptable to a majority of the primates, it is the Communion (or our relation to it), not The Episcopal Church, that must change. If militant traditionalists are determined to remake the Communion in their image, we must disengage from it, both operationally and financially. We can continue to pursue common ministry with those Anglican churches willing to tolerate our differences.

Know that you will be in my prayers in the coming days. I hope that you can help to ameliorate the current dysfunction of the Anglican Communion. If that goal is unattainable, we should reaffirm our right, willingness, and need to follow what we believe is the path demanded by our Lord and Savior.

Yours in Christ,

[signed]

Lionel E. Deimel, Ph.D.


Update, 2/3/2016. I received a letter from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry a couple of days ago. It provided no insight into his thinking in the aftermath of the meeting of the primates beyond that which I already had from his public statements. I was pleased to receive a response to my letter, however. Not every bishop to whom I have written has been polite enough to reply.

How Important Is the Diocese?

Bob Duncan, the bishop of ACNA’s Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, recently sent out a fund-raising letter.  (A PDF version of the letter is here.) The appeal carried the title “Bishop’s Extra-Mile Appeal in Support of Congregational Mission.” The appeal suggests, as have other indicators, that the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh continues to be under-funded.

As a fund-raising appeal, the heart of the letter is in these two paragraphs:

Every believer is called upon to tithe, to give away at least ten per cent of what we have to the work of God, chiefly through the local parish. Many of us go beyond the tithe. Many of us go the extra mile.

This year, my last as your Diocesan Bishop, I am asking you once again to consider an extra mile gift. Let's do something memorable!

What I was particularly struck by, however, by an earlier paragraph:

We are part of a great diocese with a great mission. We do our mission chiefly through the agency of our congregations. Congregations are primary, the diocese is secondary. The diocese exists to make its congregations strong, and to connect them with one another and with the Global Church.

The militant traditionalists of (or recently of) The Episcopal Church have played fast and loose regarding the importance of dioceses. When then bishop Duncan was urging the churches of the diocese to vote to leave The Episcopal Church, he repeatedly asserted that nothing would change; congregations would merely dissociate themselves from the heretical wider church. To reassure them—disingenuously, I might add—that they would be able to keep their property, he told the people that the diocese, detached from The Episcopal Church, would make no claim on their property such as that asserted by the Dennis Canon.

On the other hand, conservative bishops had earlier latched on to the notion promoted by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that the diocese is the fundamental unit of the church. James F. Turrell called this notion dangerous, idiosyncratic, and profoundly ahistorical. The archbishop seemed to be looking for buy-in for the Anglican Covenant wherever he could find it—why not from dioceses if The Episcopal Church would not accept it?—but the effect went beyond what was intended. Some bishops did talk of having dioceses adopt the Covenant, but Williams’ ill-considered ideas also provided justification for dioceses leaving The Episcopal Church.

The reality, I’m afraid, is that Duncan and his ilk will make whatever argument serves their purposes. When a strong diocese advances their cause, the diocese will be emphasized. When congregational autonomy does so, diocesan leaders become congregationalists.

“Suspected”? Really?

I have been eagerly awaiting news reports about the motives of the man who attacked a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs Friday. It was a fair bet that Robert Lewis Dear Jr. had some deep-seated antipathy toward Planned Parenthood, but evidence for that was technically only circumstantial.

Robert Lewis Dear Jr.

Citing “a law enforcement official,” The Washington Post reported last night that Dear, used the phrase “no more body parts” in explaining the intrusion during which he killed three people. Well, what did people expect?

But, the Post story begins: “The gunman suspected of storming a Planned Parenthood clinic … .” Really? Was Dear only “suspected” of shooting up the clinic? With so many witnesses and TV cameras, are we really incapable of saying definitively that Dear was the shooter?

We live in a country—thanks be to God—in which people accused of a crime are considered innocent until proven guilty. Dear, of course, is not yet guilty in a legal sense; legally, he is a suspect. But certain facts are beyond dispute. Assuming that Dear was not employing alien technology that distorts reality, it is as certain that he stormed the Planned Parenthood clinic as it is that Kansas City won the World Series.

In saying that Dear is only “suspected” of attacking Planned Parenthood, The Washington Post is doing what the press often does to avoid seeming to assume legal culpability. Such behavior is understandable, but it is disingenuous. Dear may be a suspect, but his actions are not merely suspected.

Mayor of Colorado Springs John Suthers offered a more forthright way of speaking of Mr. Dear. He is quoted in The New York Times as saying that ”[t]he perpetrator is in custody.”

FanDuel and DraftKings

The daily fantasy sports sites FanDuel and DraftKings (and similar, less advertised sites) have quickly become big business. It is a business threatened by regulations having to do with gambling. Is playing fantasy sports with these new companies gambling or not; are the games games of skill or of chance? The answer is clearly yes, and the legality of these games may vary from one jurisdiction to another depending upon how gambling is defined. The question to be answered is almost always how much skill versus luck is required for a player to win.

Let’s step back for a moment regarding the skill/chance balance and look at the games more abstractly. Because outcomes are based on the performance of real players in particular circumstances, there is clearly an element of chance involved. A .300 batter gets a hit roughly one time out of three, but he can also have a drought that lasts for weeks. By the same token, teams are picked by players, and there is clearly skill in knowing what players to pick.

Without trying to calculate the ratio of skill to chance involved in these games—this is impossible to do precisely anyway—it is useful to consider somewhat analogous activities. Consider the New York Stock Exchange. Skill is clearly involved in picking stocks, but chance has a significant role in whether or not one makes a profit. The rapidly expanding hamburger chain that looks like a smart investment today could become the source of an E-coli outbreak tomorrow. Despite the enormous uncertainty involved in investing in stocks, playing the stock market—note carefully that idiom—is not considered gambling, not in the way playing the slots is construed as gambling, at any rate.

Now consider horse racing. Enormous skill is required to train thoroughbreds. Jockeys are also highly skilled. A horse race is not simply about what horse is fastest; strategy, tactics, and dumb luck ultimately determine the winner. Moreover, a person choosing a horse to be the winner of a race has a good deal of knowledge at his or her disposal—how many and what races the horse has won, how successful the jockey has been, etc. Yet playing the game of selecting equine winners—betting on a horse—despite the skill that may be required to be a winner, is considered gambling.

Are daily fantasy sports contests more like playing the stock market or like playing the horses? In fact, how is playing the stock market any different from playing the ponies? I cannot distinguish these three activities from one another. They are very much alike, particularly with regard to that fact that, in each case, the professionals who make a career of playing the game tend to be the people who make all the money. (Well, maybe the people who run the games make most of the money!)

Perhaps there is a bigger question to be answered than whether FanDuel and DraftKings are gambling enterprises.

In Praise of Steam Locomotives

Builder’s photo of W&LE 6401
(Click on photo for a larger image)

Above my desk is a framed builder’s photo of a Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway steam locomotive. The K-1 class Berkshire (2-8-4) was built for the railroad by ALCO in Schenectady, New York, in 1937.

I was thinking about this locomotive today and, by extension, all steam locomotives. Why were these pieces of machinery so impressive and mesmerizing to watch? Why, even now, are there so many people fascinated by steam locomotives? I haven’t researched these questions, but I think I have something of an answer.

Much of the attraction of steam locomotives—particularly of twentieth-century ones with external valve gear—is that they were practically the only instances of large, complex machines whose mechanisms were visible to the public. Even today, large machinery is either hidden in mills or factories or are driven by electric motors or internal combustion engines that move as if by magic.

Tower cranes, locks, stadium roofs, and earth moving equipment may be behemoths, but the source of their power is obscured from view. The movement we see is stately, though we know that they are animated by intricate frenetic dances of machinery within.

Trains, planes, ships, rockets, and even highway vehicles can impress us with their size and speed. Their sounds can induce awe. But they are secretive in a way that the steam locomotive is transparent.

The sense of power of the locomotive is enhanced by sight and smell—by the smoke, the escaping steam, the flames peeking out beneath the grates, by the smell of lubricants and of burning fuel. And then there is the sound—not the uniform growl of diesel engines or traction motors, but the punctuated exhaust that increases with speed, the hiss of steam escaping the cylinder cocks, and the thump-thump of the feedwater pump.

The real attraction, though, is the motion of the wheels, valve gear, and connecting rods. The driving wheels can be taller than a person; the main rod and connecting rods often seem outrageously heavy and long, almost too big to move quickly. Yet these components do move rapidly, in an action overlaid by the blur of the lesser rods of the valve gear that, through their insanely complex motion, control the valve that admits steam to the cylinder, thereby driving the piston, piston rod, and, ultimately, the drivers themselves. There is nothing like it, and we will not see its like again.

The “Perfect” Gin and Tonic

Fever-Tree ginger beer and Bombay Sapphire gin

I recently discovered that a local supermarket has several brands of very good ginger beer. I am fond of the stuff, which is a sort of ginger ale with serious attitude. On my last supermarket trip, I came home with a carton of Fever-Tree Premium Ginger Beer. It’s good stuff.

Eventually, I got around to reading what was inside the carton. The text suggested that Fever-Tree ginger beer can be used “to create the perfect gin and tonic.” (The ginger beer includes quinine, apparently, so it has more than carbonation in common with tonic.) Conventional mixers mask the taste of fine spirits, I was told.

I like gin and tonic, and I am particularly fond of Bombay Sapphire gin, so I though I would give ginger beer a try as a substitute for tonic. I poured two ounces of gin over ice and filled the glass with Fever-Tree ginger ale. The result was tasty, but it tasted simply of ginger beer. The subtle combination of tastes of Bombay Sapphire was completely lost. In fact, I couldn’t taste the gin at all!

Bottom line: I recommend Bombay Sapphire Distilled London Dry Gin, and I recommend Fever-Tree Premium Ginger Beer. I don’t, however, recommend drinking them together.

Maybe MSNBC Got It Right

Tonight, with less fanfare than we have seen for previous presidential debates, MSNBC hosted a “Democratic Candidates Format.” The candidates were Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley. The questioner was Rachel Maddow.

The event did not use the rules for presidential debates that I recently suggested, but it was, I think, a civil and useful enterprise. The candidates were questioned individually. Only one appeared on the stage at once. Both the questions and the answers were intelligent and interesting.

The format reminded me of Inside the Actors Studio, which uses a similar format to interview actors. It is a format that is invariably interesting and illuminating.

Perhaps MSNBC has figured out how to give Americans the measure of their presidential candidates. I think that maybe MSNBC got it right.

Inclusiveness Does Not Trump Truth

I did not watch the installation of Michael Curry as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church; I was in church at the time. (The timing of the service was something of a mixed bag.) As soon as I had time, however, I began reading the sermon that the new PB preached at Washington National Cathedral. I was not far into the sermon when I was stopped dead in my tracks by this passage:

Many centuries later, Julia Ward Howe, writing in the midst of America’s Civil War, spoke of this same movement, even amidst all the ambiguities and tragedies of history. This is what she wrote:

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
with a glory in his bosom
that transfigures you and me,
as he died to make folk holy
let us live to set all free,
while God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah,
God’s truth is marching on.

Of course, as even someone ignorant of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” might suspect, the above is not what Julia Ward Howe wrote. (The Wikipedia article on the text includes a facsimile of the original publication in The Atlantic Monthly—see below.) In particular, the stanza quoted was originally

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
with a glory in his bosom
that transfigures you and me:
as he died to make men holy
let us die to make men free,
while God is marching on.

The important lines here are the antepenultimate and penultimate ones. (I have no idea what lilies have to do with anything or what glory in one’s bosom is.) The lines were written, as Curry notes, during the Civil War, when men—almost exclusively men—were dying, Howe and others hoped, to eliminate slavery. (The Emancipation Proclamation was still a year off.)

Howe poem as originally published

The “quotation” in the sermon is, quite simply, incorrect, and Curry’s assertion about what Julia Ward Howe wrote is a falsehood—not a good way to begin tenure as presiding bishop. I don’t think it was necessary to put words in Howe’s mouth to illustrate the “Jesus movement.” Knowing the context of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” we know that (1) “men” was often used to mean people, and (2) human males were actually dying for a cause.

Dying to make men free is a concept that might be scary in a sermon, and Wikipedia notes that, in many modern recordings, the penultimate line is rendered “let us live to make men free.” This makes the line more relevant in a 21st-century context, but it isn’t what Howe wrote. Curry substituted “folk” for “men,” which is an informality out of character with the rest of the poem. The use of “folk” and (on the next line) “all” make for much weaker poetry than do the original words.

No doubt, a concern for “inclusiveness” was responsible for the substitutions for “men.” I can appreciate the impulse for such changes, but there are times when they are inappropriate. Sometimes the substitutions just do not work. (The Hymnal 1982 changed “Rise up, O men of God!” to “Rise up, ye saints of God!” though the original title is cross-referenced in the index. Mercifully, “God rest you merry, gentlemen” was not similarly “fixed.”) At other times, changes rewrite history, and history deserves to remain, well, historic. I am reminded of the consistent rendering of “brothers” in the epistles as “brothers and sisters” in the New Revised Standard Version. This may make feminists feel good, but we deserve to know what was actually written. Whether Paul, by convention, referred to the saints collectively as brothers or whether he was a male chauvinist pig, I don’t know. That’s another conversation.

I do not, in principle, object to “inclusive” language, though achieving it is often a writer’s nightmare. As an objective, however, achieving inclusiveness is not as important as being truthful. Curry could easily have paraphrased Julia Ward Howe. He had no right to misquote her.

Suggestions for Presidential Debates

I’ve been watching the latest Republican presidential debates. I didn’t watch the debates live because I wanted to see the PBS Nature program on pets, followed by the remainder of the second World Series game. From this experience, I have a few suggestions for future debates, which I  list below. Note that this is not a complete specification for future debates.

1. Make the debates more widely available. Debates should be presented on broadcast networks, so people without cable can see them. The debates should be streamed live on the Web and should be available for later viewing on the Web and on demand from cable systems. They should also be broadcast on radio. Perhaps some voters will still not be able to see (or hear) the debates, but most people will.

2. Remove the live audience. We should be interested in what the candidates have to say, uninfluenced by audience reaction. If there has to be an audience, admonish its members to be silent during the proceedings. If people really want an audience that is allowed to react, assemble a Republican audience for Democratic debates and a Democratic Audience for Republican debates. That should be interesting.

3. Ask all candidates the same questions. Although it may be interesting to be able to contrast candidate A’s position with that of candidate B, it is more helpful to know what all the candidates have to say, especially regarding policy matters. It is also helpful to know if a given candidate has no opinion or only a half-baked opinion on a given subject.

4. Enforce time limits. The time limits for candidate responses to questions are never aggressively enforced. This is particularly irritating when a candidate goes on and on without answering the question asked. (See below.) If the rules of the debate allow for one-minute answers, for example, a candidate’s microphone should be cut off by a studio technician after 60 seconds. Presidents, after all, have to be able to use their time wisely, as they get no more of it than the rest of us.

5. Allow candidates to think about what they are about to say. I suggest that, after a candidate is asked a question, the candidate’s microphone not be turned on for 10 seconds. This allows for collecting one’s thoughts and preparing to answer the question that was actually asked. Of course, each candidate should have suitable time information displayed on the podium.

6. Reward succinctness. If candidates are given, say, a minute to answer, give them credit for time not used. If a candidate answers a question in 50 seconds, let him or her answer another question in 70 seconds.

7. Reward responsiveness. Candidates should not be allowed to avoid answering a question by talking about something else entirely. Nor should the American people have to put up with such a diversionary tactic. If, in 15 seconds, a candidate has not begun addressing the question posed, the microphone should be cut off and the allotted time for the answer forfeited.

8. Stick to policy and procedural questions. Voters want to know about issues such as what the candidate thinks the U.S. to do in the Middle East or the criteria the candidate would use in selecting a Supreme Court nominee. Matters particular to one candidate—haven’t you been inconsistent about one thing or another, for example—are best handled in other fora.

9. Don’t allow rebuttal. Allowing a candidate rebuttal time whenever his or her name is mentioned interrupts the flow of the debate. Rebuttals can be made later in interviews, speeches, or press releases.

10. Encourage truth-telling. This is a difficult suggestion to implement, but it is well worth looking for a mechanism to do so. Political candidates are notorious for shading the truth, and many assertions of candidates are debatable. On the other hand, candidates are not above trying to get away with outright lies. (Carly Fiorina’s story of the nonexistent Planned Parenthood video that she swears she saw is a good example of this.) Debates should employ neutral fact-checkers. Admittedly, fact-checking is difficult to do and to display—particularly on radio—on the fly. Perhaps a good mechanism would be a follow-up program on the same network a night or two later. Video of clearly false statements could be shown along with discussion of the truth by experts. Here is a place where rebuttal may be appropriate. Objectivity is both important here and difficult to achieve, but voters need to know when a candidate is espousing an outright lie.

Why I Don’t Think Much Will Come of the Roman Catholic Family Synod

A three-week synod has convened in the Vatican to reconsider how the Roman Catholic Church deals with family issues. The official theme of the conference is “The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and Contemporary World.”

The gathering is populated primarily by ordained celibate males. A few heterosexual couples are participating but who cannot vote, a status shared by a few singles, most of whom are women, some of them women religious (who, of course, are also celibate). In other words, virtually all the participants have never lived the sort of life experienced by most of the world’s adult population.

Both the composition of the synod and the inclinations exhibited by Pope Francis suggest that, at the end of three weeks, the Roman Catholic Church will be as judgmental as ever, but will downplay its condemnation. Gays will still be disordered, women will still be the oppressed minority in a church in which the represent the majority of its adherents, and, prevented from using birth control, women will be condemned for aborting unwanted offspring.

But there is another reason that nothing substantial will come of the family synod. Like meetings of Anglican primates, the worthies gathered to discuss family issues represent both Western industrialized nations and nations of the Third World. The Roman Catholic Church, like Anglican churches, is growing fastest in the developing world. As in the Anglican Communion, the greatest repository of conservative sentiment within the Roman Catholic Church is in developing countries. Even if, say, Western participants thought that the condemnation of homosexuality should be done away with, such innovation would be thoroughly unacceptable to conservative non-Western participants. Largely because of this dynamic, the best that can be hoped for from the synod is greater pastoral sensitivity devoid of any doctrinal movement.

The futility of gatherings like the current one exposes the great weakness of a worldwide church or communion in which uniformity is considered indispensable. Over two millennia, Christianity has continued to evolve to remain relevant to changing social contexts. There is no reason to believe that process is at an end, despite self-righteous prattle about “the faith once delivered to the saints.” Moreover, it is perfectly clear that Western and Third World countries represent societies at very different stages of development. To suggest that they are served by identical churches is patently absurd. God may be unchanging, but God’s people are not. A church that serves the needs of a congregation in suburban California will not likely be equally effective in rural Nigeria.

The Roman Catholic Church has backed itself into a corner from which no one can escape until everyone does so. The Anglican Communion has not done this, although some would like it to adopt the same stance as the Roman Church. May God keep our Communion from making that mistake.

Parallel Anglican Universes?

I was taken aback Friday when I received the weekly newsletter from the American Anglican Council. (For those unfamiliar with the AAC, I should explain that it is an organization whose goal has been to turn The Episcopal Church to “orthodoxy” or, failing that, to liberate as many Episcopal assets as possible for a conservative “Anglican” church in America. It is, in other words, a kind of ecclesiastical terrorist group.)

Image from Ashey essay

What amazed me was the lead essay by the Rev. Canon Phil Ashey, CEO of the American Anglican Council and, apparently, a priest of the Anglican Church in North America. The essay is titled “Archbishop Welby, What Will You Do about It?”

The essay begins with the complaint that one of the judges of the South Carolina Supreme Court, which recently heard oral arguments from the Episcopal Church in South Caroliina—the remnant of the Episcopal Church diocese—and the breakaway group led by deposed bishop Mark Lawrence, is an Episcopalian and is prejudiced against the breakaway plaintiffs.

Ashey proceeds to lament the Episcopal Church’s propensity to sue breakaway churches and dioceses and tries to position the dissidents on the ethical high ground by suggesting that they are usually defendants who would prefer to negotiate settlements. (Ironically, it was the breakaway group that initiated litigation in South Carolina and who clearly picked a judge expected to be friendly to the group’s case.) Christians should not sue Christians, he asserts. Of course, our legal system was largely designed by Christians. But never mind. The argument about who sues whom, of course, is silly, since thieves don’t usually sue their victims.

Ashey laments that the Anglican primates, in their 2007 meeting in Dar es Salaam, considered, but did not pass, a resolution calling for an end to property litigation. “Some have said,” he continues, that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby intends to use the January primates’ meeting he recently called to complete the disciplining of the Canadian and American churches that was left undone in Tanzania.

What? I thought. My impression was that Welby’s intention was to create a looser Communion, not to return to the failed project of enhancing uniformity among Communion churches. That was not precisely what the press release from Lambeth said, but it seemed to be the sense of what was being told to reporters informally. (See my essay “Anglican Communion II?”)

In the end, I don’t know what to believe. Is the Archbishop of Canterbury playing both sides, suggesting relief from the constant bickering to Western churches while suggesting to the Global South that their goal of disciplining those same churches might again be on the table? This sentence from the Lambeth press release may explain the “[s]ome say” in Ashey’s essay: “Our way forward must respect the decisions of Lambeth 1998, and of the various Anglican Consultative Council and Primates' meetings since then.” How is that possible in a looser Communion?

Is the meeting in January intended to loosen the ties that bind Communion churches to one another, or is Welby trying to finish what Rowan Williams could not? Is Ashey living in a parallel universe, or have liberals mistaken Welby’s intentions? It is beginning to seem that Welby has scattered bait to bring both sides together. If he is successful in bringing everyone to the table, does he have a plan, or is the January meeting a total crap shoot?

Update, 1/10/2016. I fixed a minor grammatical error in the final paragraph.