Time to quit the Jiggery-Pokery
This time last night I didn't know what to think. I said I hoped the Americans went ahead and refused to play ball with the suggestions in the Primates' communique. Sober reflection and two and a half hours of rehearsing Belshazzar's Feast and Elijah with the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union gave me to cast a few things around in my mind.
The communique and its annex have the appearance of a dog's breakfast - there are items which are clearly at cross purposes - but, whether by accident or design, the communique and its annex place a burden on two groups. These burdens are not equal. They give TEC (and other provinces) something which they can achieve if they so choose (or not) but at the same time they take away from a group of very motivated wreckers the one thing they clearly wanted above all else. It's why David Virtue was walking in circles yelling out the 'F' word so much the other night in Tanzania.
But....one step at a time.
The burden on TEC: There's not a lot to say about the question of consent given to newly elected Bishops by Bishops and standing committees of other dioceses. Bishops in TEC are required to give (or not) consent to the election of a new bishop and it is within their power to do what they want. Americans correct me please, but I gather that the road to compliance is that such consent would not be given the next time a partnered gay or lesbian bishop is elected by an American diocese.
With respect to the blessing of same sex relationships I don't know what the actual American experience of this is but I can only gather that if the blessing of same sex relationships had ever taken place in Canada (apart from New Westminster) and in the UK that it would have been a sub rosa affair - whether done by a bishop's invitation or done by in a congregation that's into that sort of thing with the bishop remaining blissfully unaware and not wanting to know. At least with the Diocese of New Westminster there were questions put to the Diocesan Synod.
I emailed one of my clergy friends about the matter today. His response was that were his diocese to be asked the diocese would say no. It's one of the reason the diocese hasn't been asked. I think that an overwhelming majority of dioceses in provinces outwith the U.S. would, at this point in the year 2007, be unwilling to take such a step with or without the Primatial Damocles hanging over their heads. It wouldn't wash in my parish church and woolly liberal that I am I am actually not willing to perform such a ceremony myself. If the diocese or the province were put in the position of making its mind known and said 'no' there would then be a clear directive and the hands of bishops and priests would be tied when it came to 'providing this pastoral act' for parishioners who wanted it. But, my friend said, it's not like it's a marriage, after all. There are no promises being made, no public vows. It's exactly like the blessing of a couple who have been civilly married. Yet is this not a rite which is also covered by the canons when it comes to those married outside the church asking for a blessing? Yes or no? It is or it isn't. It is - of course it is.
Has the question been asked clearly in the U.S. or is it a matter of the same unspoken jiggery-pokery? Does a diocese not have a right to be asked the question? Or, more properly, since the latest dope from Canada leading up to their discussion of the subject at General Synod is that there ought to be no 'local option', should not a province be asked, at least, what their mind is on the subject. Or does pastoral practise 'evolve' according to the cumulative weight of things done 'on the sly' by priests 'in the know'? I suspect that there has been a certain amount of not wanting to know. In which case a province probably has an obligation to express its mind on the subject. To go around performing rites 'on the side' would be pretending. We'd be sneaking around corners. Liturgy committees have been looking admiringly at the new liturgy for the blessing of same sex unions recently put out by the Church of Sweden but that liturgy has been delivered, as it were, in plain paper wrappings. We should stop pretending, ask the questions and make the requisite decisions - yea or nay - not only to serve as a litmus test for 'Windsor Compliance' (peace be unto It) but to reflect correctly the mind of our congregations, dioceses and provinces.
Will our friends at Inclusive Church be pissed? I'm damned sure they will be pissed. Tough darts. Every interview with the likes of Chris Sugden spewing his Puritan bile was immediately followed by an interview with somebody on the other end of the stick whose right to speak for the whole Church was equally in no way well founded. The workers and the peasants may not be terribly organized but the cadre needs to be accountable. Those who consider themselves the vanguard need to take the rest of us poor sods into the equation. Nothing good can emerge from things we might do on a Saturday afternoon at the chancel steps that couldn't be written up in the parish magazine. If the events of the last few days force that discussion - well it's probably been long overdue.
What about the other burden? That placed upon those who were looking forward with great glee to the explusion of TEC from the Anglican Communion and the public flaying of its Presiding Bishop. Well, they didn't get that. What had they wanted? It's a small world. People talk and share notes. They wanted what, in a UK context, Chris Sugden was stupid enough to put on paper before he had any real support for it. They wanted their own rabbit runs for mission apart from the rest of us. They wanted to build independent charismatic churches with along the lines of Saddleback Church but with Anglican signage. They wanted a covenant which included mention of infallible and authoritative Scriptures including the bits that Paul never wrote - a covenant which would exclude anybody who believed in a Word which was not necessarily identifiable with the written text. They wanted those within to be able to troop solemnly into a room once a year and sign this or that statement on the primacy of the Bible in all matters of ethics and daily life. They wanted their own bucket - their own envelope called 'church' wherein they had control and could call the shots. They wanted to be named TEC's replacement. They wanted their own house of bishops - they wanted a route to ordain their own candidates. They wanted to be able to pull in candidates exclusively from the Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry or Moore College in Australia or Oak Hill in the UK or whatever other madrassa they chose to add to the list. They wanted something which was from bottom to top its own organization. They wanted most of us out.
What they got was jack shit. The suggestion they got from the Primates was for a temporary measure of a primatial vicar who will work with the Peeb and a clear intention on the part of the Primates to move together those things which have fallen apart. They got fellowship with ordinary Episcopalians. Doubtless the wrangling has only begun. They all ran off whispering to send emails. They went into conclaves. It's not over by any stretch of the imagination and it is not in their interests to make the Primates' suggestions bear fruit. In the long run it may prove to be in yours.
2 comments:
On consecrations I think you're mostly correct, although the bishops will need to at least maintain the polite fiction that they aren't committed to discrimination against people based on sexual orientation, since such discrimination is explicitly prohibited in TEC's canons.
Blessings in TEC haven't been particularly sub rosa and IIRC are generally not supposed to imitate any of the marriage rites. Also the question has been addressed by the HoB's Theology Committee, who most recently said that there is no consensus on the subject at this time. I'm not sure what sort of answer the HoB might give to the Primates on the subject, but if they go for anything like a moratorium there are likely to be significant problems in trying to actually enforce such a thing. The enforcement problems could lead the HoB to try to find some way to make a distinction between what is being done and Rites of the Church, perhaps based on GC approval of liturgical resources, but it's anyone's guess how well that would fly with the rest of the communion.
Jon
Yes things are going to be difficult. Fact is, good people who are not straight are going to have to be disowned in TEC in order to have any chance of meeting the stated requirements.
In the Anglican manner, the invitation to leave or persist silently and invisibly is all too clear. Meeting the criteria about not ordaining gay bishops is just fine, so long as we value closet appearances over speaking honestly. Meeting the standard for weighing in against even the secretive possibilities of having a sneaky couples blessing in private in a home somewhere amounts to TEC having to tell its gay or lesbian committed couples (and their children in many cases): Go have a good life, but not here among us in the sight of God and of God's people.
Knowing the USA Bible Belt and its conservatisms as well as I do from having grown up in them, none of this is much of a surprise to me actually. The hope that Anglicanism could manage to leave conscientious leeway for the decent public lives of gay/lesbian couples (and their children, always those children in TEC) among us was I guess a fairly slim glimmer. If TEC did anything wrongly, surely it was to underestimate the historic inclusion of progressive believers inside the Anglican Communion, a mistake of breathing space and critical inquiry oxygen which probably will slowly and inevitably seep deep, into the progressive believers who made that mistake in the first place.
Surely we cannot avoid standing quite corrected.
Finally Canterbury has come right out and summarized where Anglicans are supposed to be, but probably it is rather late in the realignment campaign game to claim that Anglicans are really in the stated position. That is, according to Rowan Williams latest statement, Anglicans generally believe that gay or lesbian citizens are fully entitled to free, fair, and good life opportunities outside the church in every sort of wider culture or society. No violence, no bad mouthing, no barriers or hindrances or punishments special to the queer folks, then. Inside the church, of course, it is supposed to be another Anglican matter, based on categorical legacies which pronounce nothing but evil and immorality for those same queer folks.
(See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/02/23/do2301.xml )
Okay, let's run with that a bit.
First off, if you are a partnered gay or lesbian couple with children who thought they belonged in TEC, where do you think you will hear now that you are better off, living? Yups, the instruction is: Go do your nasty Out, Partnered, Parenting Queer Stuff outside the Anglican church. We read scripture to absolutely prohibit us recognizing any decency in your Out, Partnered, Parenting Queer lives. Full stop. Period. Just have to tell you the gospel truth, in love. And remember, Jesus loves you just like we do.
Secondly, if this is the worldwide Anglican position; somebody had better tell Nigeria and a few other Anglican places, because they are not up to speed on the citizen fair play stuff.
Thirdly, what sort of gospel is flowing from what sort of discernment here - when Anglicans tell everybody that the best they can manage is to ask cultures and societies to be less violent and more fair-minded than believers inside Anglican churches are prepared to be? And what sort of discernment is going on when the main authority for bearing false witness against the decent lives of average gay or lesbian people is agreed by all to be, nothing but the sheer Word of God?
If being Anglican means being just this mean to our favorite target sinners of the moment, then I guess I have quite mistaken myself for an Anglican believer. I do apologize. As soon as we get finished deciding if TEC is also this sort of Anglican Communion member, then the implications will be clear for the rest of us. Only a matter of time, then, it appears. I am guessing we will all stay tuned until this train wreck has played itself out in public slow-mo.
Maybe after that we can pick up the pieces and still say a prayer of thanks to Jesus for being Risen Lord - outside of the Anglican Communion?
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