A Submission to the Lambeth Commission on Communion

By Members of the Episcopal Church (USA) Concerned for an Anglican Witness to God's Mercy and Justice

PREFACE:

This submission intends to address those questions posed by the Lambeth Commission on communion. [i]   We preface the particulars of our response with several theological perspectives growing from our profound conviction that God's mercy and justice require that we be open to a continuous renewal of the Church, its mission to the world, and the ordering of our common life.

It is not our intention to present here that broader and more powerful witness to God's love for the often outcast members of the Church, whose inclusion in the several sacramentally set apart vocations of the Church has been the matter of so much debate and considerable rancor in recent years.  That witness is, in part, addressed by the theological paper, “Claiming the Blessing,” submitted as a separate document. “Claiming the Blessing” summarizes much of the theological efforts to understand the meaning and spiritual weight of blessing as a primary activity of the Church.  We commend it to you.

We understand that the Commission's questions concern how we deal with conflict rather than the merits of positions in the conflict, but we are puzzled by some submissions to the Commission which have thoroughly ignored the mandate of the Commission and its questions, providing instead commentary on the content of the specific disputes and recommendations as to how the Communion might discipline ECUSA and the Diocese of New Westminster.   We believe a much more important place to begin is with the affirmation of the faith which we believe grounds our responses.  Among the theological perspectives we commend as central to all our work are these:

God Is for Us, but Particularly for the Poor: We believe in God's continued engagement with humankind in its various cultures, societies, political and religious structures, an engagement that includes every member of the human family and indeed all of the Created Order.   Our faith is rooted in the belief that God loves us all and yet has a special preference for the poor, such that God's mercy is in every case bound with God's justice.

Scripture, Tradition, and Reason: As members of various provinces of the Anglican Communion we are strongly and faithfully committed to our churches as vehicles of God's redeeming grace, to the writings accepted by the ancient Episcopal community, to the work of generations of faithful theologians, prophets and pastors, and to the gifts of reason, faith and spirit God has given each of us, severally and together.

The Lambeth Quadrilateral: The general belief in God's love for us is constantly held contextually in the heart of the Church's own ongoing life in faith.  We celebrate the value and life of the Anglican Communion and its several churches, and affirm the Holy Scriptures, the sacraments, the ancient creeds and the episcopate.

The Lambeth Commission mandate and questions do not, we believe, ask any of us to justify these affirmations.  It is our sense the Lambeth Commission believes that all parties in the presenting conflicts come with a desire to affirm the ground of our theological and ecclesial life.  It is within this context that we are impelled to attend to the present moment in which we believe God is calling us to ponder anew God's mercy and justice as regards the roles of women and homosexual persons in the Church. [ii]   We realize that our task as people of faith is in part to recognize and distinguish the “new” that is of God from the simply novel that is of this or that contextual environment.

The questions presented to the Anglican Communion and its several provinces in its efforts toward communion grow from the question, “Who may be included in the sacramental vocations of baptism, marriage and holy orders?”   Derivative to this [MH2] we must then ask, “How are member churches of the Anglican Communion to deal with differences in their answers or their understanding of answers to the first question?”

From our perspective, no ecclesial, political, social or cultural structure has ultimate authority to limit the call to the vocation of holy living.   These structures have every authority to determine within the limits of their own mandates whose call will be affirmed within their own community.   For people of faith, all such structures have value finally to the extent to which they assist the faithful community in its discernment as a people of God.   Therefore,

• We are not afraid or ashamed to find such structures wanting, when that is necessary, or commendable when that is possible.
• We are not persuaded that the proclamation of God's justice and mercy needs to wait for the widest approbation from the most nebulous of Anglican entities, namely the instruments of unity of the Anglican Communion, rather  
• We believe that decisions made on a diocesan and provincial level, where constitutions and canons do exist and representatives do assemble in council with authority to collectively make decisions, constitutes the proper venue for the determination of suitability for office and vocation.

The signatories of this document are all children of the Church, the people of God gathered in various assemblies and fellowships.   While we recognize that the icon of the undivided Church represents the reality and fulfillment of Our Lord's prayer that we all might be one, every argument from the imagined past based on the notion of the undivided Church betrays a partisan vanity of those whose contentions carried their day.   Unity as a structural, legal or canonically defined matter seems regrettably to have held very infrequently in the history of the Church.

We believe unity must be discussed under two banners:

• Unity as defined and confined in restrictive law and code. This has been mostly unrealized in the Church.   The call for such unity has been a weapon for church parties of all sorts and we pray we do not find ourselves mirroring past party behavior.
• Unity as defined by love, that is by the overriding conviction that God's mercy and justice are reflected in God's love for us all.   Such unity is wonderfully and amazingly possible in the most difficult of circumstances; it is always looking for the way beyond the contentions of the day to the renewal of all things, in which we learn to love the whole of Creation as God so loves the world.

In the current conditions, which are always the condition of the Church in the world, unity in law and code is always fracturing and unity in love is always uniting.   When we see the brokenness of our Communion or Church we see rightly and it is a source of grief.   When we find ourselves at one with those who seek God's mercy and justice, we see the unity of love, which indeed holds.   How could it not?   For that unity is of the creative love of God, which pervades all of Creation.   Given the structural fractures in the communion of the Church, that is the disunity under law and code, it may be the vocation of the several churches, including our own Anglican Communion and its member churches, to challenge the received truths of our several churches and to be open to changes in support of the mercy and justice of God.

Brokenness is both a tragic situation and a gift; tragic because it engenders conflict, a gift because eventual healing requires our being made new.   We, and all other named churches (denominations) may need to be understood as communities of wounded healers rather than the icon of the Holy City.

In our brokenness we are healed by the love of God for each one, and each all together.   We believe that the love that God has for humankind and the whole of Creation requires our constant attention to the ways in which God's justice and mercy find voice in the continually renewed Creation, of which the Church is a part.

It is in this spirit that we respond to the questions posed.

THE QUESTIONS (sometimes abbreviated here):

1.  What are the legal and theological implications of the ordination of Bishop Robinson?

a.  Concerning the legal implications [iii] : ECUSA does not “appoint” persons to the office of bishop.   Rather, the bishop is elected.  That process is well laid out in the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church and was followed carefully with scrutiny bordering on cruel and unusual, and resulted in election and consent.

We believe that had the ordination been prevented following this canonical process, the violation of ECUSA canons would have been devastating to the ordering of our common life as the Episcopal Church.

The constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church make no provisions for appeal from the canonical determination that a particular person is elected by a diocese and consented to by the Church save for background checks, medical and psychological evaluation.   Those are all completed before the time of ordination.

The legal implications are therefore that:

• The election and ordination of Bishop Robinson was canonically in order, as concerns the only canonical context in which that judgment can be made, namely the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church.
• Appeal to extra-provincial authority awaits the existence of such an authority and the acquiescence to that authority by constitutional change in ECUSA's constitution.
• Our sense is that the development of such authority as this will be a major Communion-wide issue, to be discussed at the next Lambeth Conference, which may as a result be the last such conference, to be replaced by a body with a different mandate.

b. Theological implications

As concerns the relation between received theological understandings and new insights, conflict has been the norm and the claims arising from popular struggle (i.e. politics within the Church) and spiritual struggle (i.e. the claim to special insight, revelation, new understanding of old disciplines and doctrines, etc.) have raged.

We are persuaded that critical incidents in the development of theology have not been intellectual exercises in reform, but rather political and spiritual exercises in radical renewal.   Such incidents have often consisted of struggle that takes place over years, and sometimes centuries.

The theological implication of the ordination of Bishop Robinson is that it proposes yet another call for radical renewal rather than reform.   ECUSA and other member churches of the Anglican Communion must make the decision as to whether this ordination is a response to God's call for renewal, such renewal involving a break with past practice, or not.   They may not all respond in the same way.

If this is the work of the Spirit of God for the continuing renewal of the Church, and the work of God's mercy and justice, then these decisions stand in the honorable lineage of the inclusion of Gentiles, the developing but not yet complete inclusion of women, the rejection of slavery, and other signs of renewal.   If member churches of the Anglican Communion do not so believe this pertains to the Spirit of God in the world they will need to show how mercy and justice are to be found in the rejection of the vocational call of homosexual persons.

The theological implications of this ordination place ECUSA and every other province in the position of having to determine as best it can if indeed God's grace, mercy and judgment, extend in actual practice to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons in the Church.

2. What are the legal and theological implications of the Diocese of New Westminster's decision to authorize services for same-sex unions?

a.   Legal implications:

We are aware that in the several provinces of the Anglican Communion the complex relationship between the civil laws regarding marriage, the ecclesiastical laws regarding the solemnization of marriage, the issue of blessing and the fitness of persons for marriage, and the social and political context effect every exploration of the question of blessing same-sex unions.

As regards canon law, two matters seem to be most central: (i) Do canons explicitly or implicitly limit the occasions on which a priest or bishop may bless persons, and are such occasions of blessing limited to liturgical services authorized by the Church?   (ii) Are authorized services assumed to carry canonical force, and are such services then vehicles for theological development and implementation of new vision? [MH3]

We cannot answer the first question, as canons differ by province. The second seems to us manifestly true. Anglicans seem in agreement that what we believe is closely linked to what and how we pray.

In authorizing services for same-sex blessings, a diocese is witnessing to an instrument for the renewal of the Church, a liturgy which states aloud that which has been said quietly – that persons in committed relationships other than marriage, and persons of the same sex in such relationships, are the proper objects of prayers of blessing.   The legal (canonical) ramifications of that are that such persons are not to be numbered, as a group, as part of those whose notable sin or scandal make them unfit to receive blessing.   Canonical restrictions on inclusion in the faithful community or vocations within that community would then need to be changed to reflect this fact.

b.   Theological implications:

The blessing of same-sex relationships, as the blessing of any person or persons, takes place within the framework of God's assurance to the blessed ones that they are held, protected, nurtured, and otherwise sheltered in God's nearness to them. Blessing affirms God present, just as Curse affirms distance from God.

The theological implications of the blessing of same-sex relationships is that God does not reject or proclaim distance, but rather holds close and proclaims presence, to those who covenant with one another for a common life.   Those who hold that sexual expression between persons of the same sex who are in covenant is to be universally condemned will, of course, see no possibilities of blessing.   We believe that the matter viewed from this standpoint invokes a God of judgment and wrath rather than a God of justice and mercy.

We believe that the theological implications of such blessings are both to open out the possibility of grace-filled vocation and to call for justice in such relationships, much as the blessing of heterosexual marriage has carried with it great promise and great responsibility.

We believe that at some future time theological conversations about marriage, living in religious community, living in a household with others, and living in committed same-sex relationships, and living as a monastic or single person will all become part of a general discussion of the vocation we all have to holy living.   Our hope is that a theology of holy living growing from a theology of baptism will replace the rather limited theologies of vocation to this or that particular calling to common or monastic life.

3. What are the canonical understandings of (a) communion, (b) impaired communion and (c) broken communion?   (What is autonomy and how is it related to communion?)

If the question is “What might the Anglican Communion mean by communion, impaired communion and broken communion,” we offer the following: [iv]

• Communion concerns table fellowship; it concerns who sits at table, who presides, what is eaten, what prayers are said and why, and how that companionship mirrors the sacred community of Jesus and his followers. It concerns a community of thanksgiving and offering, thanksgiving for the Lord Jesus, offering of all that we have and all that we are for the healing and salvation of the world.
• Communion is determined by every gathering at every table where the followers of Jesus Christ gather.   Thus issues of inclusion and exclusion from the invited happen in the local community and they happen at the Lambeth Conference both.   The issues are not about the “level” of the gathering, they are about the confidence and love held for one another by those who gather to eat the sacred meal.
• Impaired communion implies a breakdown in that confidence and love and generally requires amendment of relationship among those whose relationships are broken.   Persons in impaired communion may not be willing to eat together.
• Broken communion implies a clear unwillingness to eat together and a deliberate counter invitation to another table, another fellowship.
• Broken communion means separated table fellowship and often the claim of uniquely valid fellowship by various parties to the brokenness.

Autonomy is not about communion, table fellowship, invitation or rejection.   Autonomy concerns the ability of any table fellowship to make such decisions.   A community exercises autonomy when it extends an invitation to table fellowship, when it doesn't, and when it withdraws or renews that invitation.

Every religious community must decide how autonomy is to be exercised.   Generally speaking, Anglicans have normally placed the decisions about table fellowship at the diocesan and provincial level.   In practice, however, it is congregational life that has most influenced the nature of table fellowship, for good or ill.  

The assumption of ECUSA's Book of Common Prayer and the preface to its constitution is that autonomy in the decisions of the Church assembled are profoundly influenced by the theological, liturgical and spiritual traditions of the Church, as a matter of intention.   What we do is limited by who we are and how we became who we are.   But we are who we are primarily at a very local level.   It is there that the most consistent witness concerning table fellowship takes place, and the decisions of a congregation are to a surprising extent autonomous in fact.

Autonomy specifically conveys the ability to declare and witness to the faith in ways that work for the radical renewal of the Church. That it does so rarely is a mixed blessing.   It is precisely the notion of autonomy that makes it possible for breaks in the pattern of past action to arise and renew our common prayer and life.   This possibility is a fundamental principle of the 16th century reformation of which we are inheritors.

The relation between communion and autonomy is thus the relation between the witness of table fellowship and any possible renewal and witness in it to God's expansive inclusion in God's mercy and justice.

It is autonomous action of particular provinces, and sometimes diocesan bishops, that has opened up the ordination of women in the Communion, and thus changed table fellowship.

It is autonomous action of particular provinces that has opened the Anglican Communion to new ways of prayer and the churches to new ways of governance, and thus changed table fellowship.

It is autonomous action of particular provinces and dioceses that has forced the Anglican Communion to reconsider the openness with which it will include gay and lesbian persons at the table.

4.   How (do or) may provinces relate to one another in situations where the ecclesiastical authorities of one province feel unable to maintain the fullness of communion with another part of the Anglican Communion?

They will hopefully relate to one another as they do with other Christian communities – ecumenically.   We have a great deal of practice with this and in some areas of our care for the world ecumenical action has been primary for at least a century.

5. What practical solutions might there be to maintain the highest degree of communion that may be possible, in the circumstances resulting from these two decisions, within the individual churches involved?   (E.g, [alternative] Episcopal oversight when full communion is threatened.)

The threat to full communion in these cases seems based in the fear, on the one hand of impurity, and on the other hand the fear of disloyalty.  People and clergy who cannot abide the presence at table fellowship of their bishop, or bishops who cannot abide the presence at table fellowship of bishops who voted or ruled in the affirmative on these issues, seem to believe that such persons make their table fellowship less pure and less durable.  People, clergy and bishops who believe they have acted rightly in affirming the inclusion of gay and lesbian persons sometimes see opposition as disloyalty, and indeed, sometimes it is.  Those fears lead to estrangement – to the diminution of the state of full communion.

Alternative Episcopal oversight is a temporary option developed in order to set some of the fears of impurity and disloyalty to rest.   It is, we believe, a stopgap measure.   If used, it must in every case be with the bishop's express permission (else it fans the fires of disloyalty) and it must genuinely meet the pastoral and theological needs of the community calling for such oversight.   We believe the efforts that Bishop Robinson of New Hampshire made in the late Spring and Summer of this year to develop such oversight were precisely of this sort.

We are surprised to see the extent to which alternative Episcopal oversight has been raised as a solution, as if fear and estrangement were to be dealt with by institutionalizing those feelings into a permanent condition.   Better, we believe, to live with the difficulties of love impaired or to divorce than to constantly and forever avoid the realities.

There is, we suggest, a more excellent way.  We believe God's love for us is greater than all our workings to estrange ourselves from God, and that that love will endure.  If we are estranged from one another it is an opportunity to work for reconciliation.  Thus the practical solution to impaired communion is to seek out occasions for common work and life, and finally again for table fellowship.  Seeking out those occasions requires the willingness to live beyond the impairments of the present time, without anxiety as to the awkwardness of the moment.  

Barring such a spirit concerning the renewal of love, we recommend divorce – the admission that communion is broken.   All of us have better things to do in witness to the Good News than to quarrel forever.

6. What practical solutions might there be to maintain the highest degree of communion that may be possible, in the circumstances resulting from these two decisions, as between the churches of the Anglican Communion?   (E.g., [alternative] Episcopal oversight when full communion is threatened.)

We believe the issue of table fellowship should be remitted to that environment out of which it grew initially: the invitation by the Archbishop of Canterbury to share such fellowship with him. The effort to make the instruments for unity, and in particular the Archbishop of Canterbury, a matter of law and canon are regrettable, and we believe finally impossible to realize. The effort to make these same instruments work for love's unity, reflecting the love of God, will increasingly strengthen communion.

As a practical first step we suggest that the Archbishop invite to the Lambeth Conference those bishops he wishes to invite, and those who stay away because of the presence or absence of a particular bishop or bishops on the invitation list, simply stay away.   It puts the pressure where it must be, on the Archbishop of Canterbury as an instrument of unity, but it does not dictate who he invites.   That remains his purview.

7. Under (a) what circumstances, (b) what conditions and (c) by what means, might it be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise an extraordinary ministry of pastoral oversight, support and reconciliation with regard to the internal affairs of a province to maintain communion between Canterbury and that province?   (See Lambeth Conference 1998, Res. IV.13.)

There is no authority for such extraordinary ministry by the Archbishop of Canterbury in ECUSA.   It is our understanding that the Archbishop has intervened in the past in provinces that were historically rooted in the Church of England's missionary efforts and where the provincial constitution might well have recognized the Archbishop in such a role.   But in ECUSA no such authority is recognized, nor do we believe it should be.

At the same time we would hope that such extraordinary ministry would be welcomed as an effort to promote the unity that arises from mutual affection and the desire to remain in full communion.

8. Under (a) what circumstances, (b) what conditions and (c) by what means, might it be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise an extraordinary ministry of pastoral oversight, support and reconciliation with regard to the internal affairs of a province to maintain communion between that province and the rest of the Anglican Communion?   (See Lambeth Conference 1998, Res. IV.13)

The answer to Question Seven applies here as well. There is no circumstance under which the exercise of the Archbishop's ministry might be imposed. Rather we would hope his ministry would be welcomed, in so far as it serves the hope for unity.

The possibilities of arbitration or mediation has been raised in the recent past, and while that could be a useful intervention, it does not carry binding results unless the parties agree to such.  Mediation can take place between parties whose distrust has impaired communion.  But the decisions of church councils are what they are, and their revocation, remains a matter for those councils.

FOOTNOTES

[i] See http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/37/00/acns3713.cfm  

[ii] We include women and homosexual persons here because we believe there is a profoundly unsettling relationship between the way in which objection to the ordination of women as priests and bishops has been framed and the way in which objection to the ordination of homosexual persons as priests and bishops has been framed.

[iii] By ‘legal' we assume the Commission is speaking of ecclesiastical law, i.e. the canons and constitutions of the various churches in the Anglican Communion, and not to civil law.  

[iv] We believe this question is miscast, for we hope the commission does not want to know from various submissions what this or that set of canons means by these, or for that matter what past Lambeth Conferences (which have no canonical standing) or past Councils have to say on the matter.