Catholic and Reformed

On Perikles

2012-01-21T12:07:00.007-05:00

To my mind, Mary Renault remains one of the finest novelists of the classical period of Greek Civilization and The Last of the Wine, set during the dying days of the Peloponnesian War, when the hubris of Athenian expansionism was broken by Sparta and her allies, is perhaps the greatest of her literary endeavors. In this excerpt, Alexias, the narrator, and his comrade and lover Lysis, in service on the island of Samos, ponder the justice of the Athenian cause and Lysis recalls the influence upon him of Perikles' famous Funeral Oration, delivered in 431 BC.

He turned the wine-cup in his hand. The black of his eyes, which had been wide open, grew small from looking at the flame, and the iris pleated, like grey and brown silk catching the light.

"They held an Epitaphion at Athens," he said, "in the first year of the war, in honor of the fallen. The ashes and the offerings were carried in state along the Sacred Way, with an empty bier for the bodies that were lost. It was only a few months before your birth; perhaps your mother carried you in procession. I was seven years old. I stood with my father in the Street of Tombs; it was cold and I wanted to run off and play. I stared at the high wooden rostrum they had built for Perikles, waiting for him to climb it, as children wait for a show. When he appeared, I admired his dignity and his fine helmet; and the first sound of his voice struck a kind of thrill upon my ear. But soon I grew tired of standing with cold hands and feet, and doing nothing; I thought it would never end; the weeping of the women had disturbed me, and now the people listened in so deep a silence that I was oppressed by it. I stood staring at the gravestone of a lad carved with his horse; I can see it to this day. I was glad when it was over, and if you had asked me a year later to quote the speech of Perikles, I doubt if I could have fished you up a dozen words. So before I left, I looked it up in the archives. And there were the thoughts that I had supposed I owed to no one. While I read, I still could not remember hearing Perikles say these things. My soul seemed to remember them, as Sokrates says we remember music and mathematics, from the days when we were unborn and pure."

I told him I had heard of the speech but never read it; and he quoted me as much of it as he could remember. Since then I have read it many times. But since I never knew Perikles, to me it is always Lysis who is speaking; I see not the tomb and the rostrum, but the lamps of Samos through a doorway, his shadow thrown big upon the wall, the piled armour shining beside the pallet, the black glossy wine-cup, and his hand, with an old ring of plaited gold on it, touching the stem.

"Men are not born equal in themselves," he said to me after, "so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow-citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man who thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a City where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will." (Emphasis added.)

From: Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine (New York: Vintage Books, 1973; orig. pub. 1956), 271-273.

A Two-Doctorate Family

2012-01-20T17:50:00.002-05:00

Today, our household complement of PhDs doubled, after my wife, Jennifer Bonner, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled INTESTINAL DRUG ABSORPTION, CYTOCHROME P450 3A-MEDIATED METABOLISM, AND TRANSPORT AFTER SMALL BOWEL TRANSPLANTATION at the University of Pittsburgh.

Words cannot do justice to the toil, tears and sweat that went into this endeavor, but, having watched its seven-year gestation, I can attest to the toll that it has taken. Through it all, my wife has constantly kept in mind that her work is ultimately intended to serve the patients whom she studied and their successors.

I merely write history, my wife (in company with a great crowd of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other hospital personnel) helps provide the sick with more opportunities to make their own.

Barchester Redivivus: A Tale of A Cathedral, A Resolution and Human Frailty

2012-01-05T08:50:00.014-05:00

Author's Note: This report is written primarily to assist members of Trinity Cathedral in working through our recent crisis. The author will entertain comments here, but gives fair warning that purely pejorative observations regarding members of Trinity - or the leadership of ACNA or TEC - will be unceremoniously deleted. While he has no control over comments at sites that may link to this post, he requests that commentators at other sites observe the same courtesy. A related thread of interest may be found here.

January 7 Update: See Lionel Deimel's response.

Introduction

On Thursday December 15, the Chapter of Pittsburgh’s Trinity Cathedral adopted a motion to reaffirm the charter of incorporation adopted in 1928 when Trinity assumed pro-cathedral status. In an announcement issued the following day, the Provost – Canon Catherine Brall – declared that the vote "effectively ends the governance provisions of the Special Resolution which was adopted by Chapter in August, 2008 and ratified by the parish in September, 2008." Just three years ago, the adoption of the Special Resolution drew considerable attention both within and beyond the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Providing some context for how it was adopted, implemented and ultimately revoked seems timely. The author of this report – a member of Chapter when the Special Resolution was first adopted – has consulted with Archbishop Robert Duncan, Bishop Kenneth Price, Canon Brall, all the current members of Chapter (though not all have chosen to respond) and former Chapter member John Campbell, who served until November 2011 and resigned from the Cathedral following repeal of the Special Resolution. A good faith effort has been made to incorporate the competing narratives surrounding recent events, yet it is an underlying premise of the report that the Special Resolution had an inherent merit and that the manner of its demise fell short of the standards to which Trinity had previously been committed.

Trinity and Realignment

To understand the context of the Special Resolution, it is necessary to go back to the original decision of the Diocese of Pittsburgh to realign in 2007 and 2008. Unlike the Dioceses of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Quincy – where most of those who chose to remain with The Episcopal Church (TEC) are generally happy with the course pursued by the national church – the process of diocesan realignment in Pittsburgh separated a significant number of clerical conservatives (and their congregations) from the soon-to-be Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). It was in this context that, two months before the second – and final – vote on realignment, the Chapter of Trinity Cathedral debated and adopted the Special Resolution (the text of which, interestingly enough, can still be found on the cathedral website), which was subsequently ratified by the wider parish membership. Canon Brall has stated to me recently that she understands that the word "ratified" was deliberately employed so as to signify approval without any legal change in the character of the by-laws and charter of Trinity Cathedral. To my recollection this was not a fact emphasized to members of the Chapter at the time when the concept of the resolution was put forward by the Provost, formally developed by two members of the Chapter (one a lawyer and future ACNA member; the other the TEC-leaning head of the World Affairs Council) and carefully reflected upon by the whole body, of which the present author was then a member.

Put simply, the Special Resolution affirmed both the parish’s "unique historical roots" as "the first church of Anglican and Episcopal worship in Pittsburgh," and a commitment made in September 2003, when the present crisis in TEC began to take shape, "to preserve the unity of The Episcopal Church and to facilitate resolution of divisions within the body of the Church," as grounds for refusing at that time to make an "exclusive choice" between the two church bodies (TEC and the future ACNA). To that end the following commitment was made:

The people and Chapter of Trinity Cathedral commit themselves to being a Christian community, in which the love of God is manifest to all; in which the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be evidenced in our practices of self-restraint, mutual accountability, and extending respect and forbearance to those with whom we differ; and in which the fellowship of the Holy Spirit may be exemplified in our choosing to forgive rather than retaliate, to heal hurts rather than nurse grudges, and to remain together when it would be easier and less costly to go our separate ways. (Emphasis added.)

To this was added a commitment to remain a "unified Cathedral," even to the extent of being the seat of two Bishops from contending jurisdictions. To that end, provision was made for both jurisdictions to elect representatives to the Chapter and for both Bishops (if two existed) to serve as co-presidents. At the same time, the Special Resolution expressed an expectation that it would be permitted representation in the diocesan conventions of both competing bodies. Perhaps most importantly, the Special Resolution contained the following provision:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that – if circumstances necessitate the application of the principles and provisions of this Special Resolution – the By-Laws governing the parish and Chapter of Trinity Cathedral shall be amended to incorporate these same principles and provisions, and that subsequent amendment of those By-Laws to alter substantively these principles and provisions shall require concurrence by a two-thirds majority of Chapter members elected by Trinity parish and by a two-thirds majority of those parish members present at a special meeting of the parish congregation, duly convened according to the By-Laws.

It should be noted that, in the Canon Provost’s understanding, since alterations to the by-laws would have required the consent of the diocesan standing committee at a time when the Diocese of Pittsburgh was headed for division and reorganization into two separate entities, said alteration was impossible. She further notes that she did receive a communication from the TEC Standing Committee stating that they could not acknowledge the Special Resolution. This was not communicated to the Chapter, at least not in the form of a declaration of legal non-recognition.

The Reception of the Special Resolution

It should not be imagined that the Special Resolution was particularly well received at the time or subsequently, although Canon Brall did receive some expressions of appreciation from persons within and beyond the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Many observers viewed it as an abrogation of responsibility and the reflection of an inability to make hard choices. The fact that Trinity had for more than a decade been limping along financially only added to the conviction that the cathedral was seeking to have its cake and eat it. It cannot be denied that the short-term practical consequences were welcome. Nevertheless, few people in 2008 could have predicted with certainty how the two Dioceses would relate in the long-term.

Many had hoped that the relatively even balance of Episcopal and Anglican populations and the presence in the TEC Diocese of a significant body of theologically conservative clergy would promote a spirit of forbearance. The property disputes (for which ACNA must accept a measure of responsibility in choosing to pursue them) and the fact that it seems increasingly clear that conservatives in the TEC Diocese lack the numbers needed to shape such a course have changed all of this.

To reduce the perceived failure of the Special Resolution to this level, however, is in part to abrogate the cathedral’s responsibility for clarifying what the Special Resolution was about. "This Resolution shall be publicized to all lay persons and clergy within the existing Diocese of Pittsburgh and to appropriate authorities within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion," read the final clause "with a prayer that – by the grace of God – these principles will serve as a Christian model for reconciliation within divided communities." The Special Resolution was never, as many members of Chapter understood it, about drawing people to Trinity (though obviously any drawn to the congregation by the principles enunciated would have been welcome), and it was never publicly understood as promoting congregational growth, though Canon Brall states that she certainly hoped for such an outcome. To assert that the failure to grow is somehow due to the confusion provoked by the Special Resolution is, in the view of certain Chapter members at least, disingenuous; that failure is entirely separate from the purpose of the Special Resolution and long pre-dated realignment. Where the disjunction arose, at least in the view of the Resolution’s proponents, was in the parish’s failure to communicate to the wider world the principles that were so clearly enunciated in 2008. It should be acknowledged, however, that at the time it did receive coverage in the parish newsletter, the parish and diocesan (undivided) website and in press releases.

The tragedy of recent events, however, has been not that Trinity Cathedral has made the decision to align solely with the TEC Diocese of Pittsburgh, but the manner in which that decision was reached, which demonstrated neither "mutual accountability" nor "respect and forbearance." By their action, those who voted to support the December 15 motion inflicted a devastating – and quite unnecessary – blow to the community whom they – quite sincerely – believe themselves to be supporting.

2011: The Year of Decision

During the first half of 2011, members of the Chapter devoted themselves to Kevin Ford’s Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to the Great, a book recommended by Canon Brall, as part of ongoing discussions concerning Trinity Cathedral’s long-term strategic plan. Several of those involved found it pertinent to the cathedral’s situation and the discussions around it productive. No indication was given at that time that there was any need to revise the mode of governance under the Special Resolution.

In February, however, TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori proposed to attend the TEC clergy renewal of vows on April 19 (the Tuesday of Holy Week). Canon Brall states that she received representations not to host the Presiding Bishop in any capacity, but there is also discontinuity of perception in how the calendar clash with the already scheduled ACNA renewal of vows was handled. Canon Brall states that she only inquired of the ACNA diocese whether they could change their schedule, while the ACNA perspective is that an attempt was made to persuade Archbishop Duncan to relocate the ACNA service. The cathedral ultimately hosted a public forum for the Presiding Bishop on the Tuesday evening after the TEC renewal of vows in Wilkinsburg.

If the ACNA claim is accurate, given the importance accorded by the Special Resolution to serving both dioceses equally, it was at least unfortunate that the question of moving a pre-scheduled ACNA event was even raised. It should also be noted, however, that the Canon Provost made inquiries of ACNA about hosting this year's ACNA diaconal ordinations – which did not occur the previous year owing to an untypical morning wedding – but did not learn of the ACNA diocese’s rejection until she read the public announcement that they would take place at Church of the Ascension.

At the April Chapter meeting, the Canon Provost solicited feedback from members as to the qualities desired in the new TEC Bishop to be elected in 2012, which included "a reconciler," "one who accepts the Special Resolution," and "Biblical and Prayer Book perspective rather than civil law." According to the Canon Provost, the latter two suggestions came from self-identified Anglicans. At the May Chapter meeting, interim TEC Bishop Price, while declaring that he and Archbishop Duncan were working well together, noted that some in the Episcopal Diocese were wondering how a new Bishop might react to the Special Resolution. When later asked why Calvary Church had been chosen for the consecration, he responded that although logistical considerations were a factor there was also a belief in some quarters that it should take place "in a facility solely dedicated to the Episcopal Church." Apparently this elicited both "comment and concern" among some of those present. Bishop Price, it should be noted, informs me that the Chapter minutes exaggerate the importance of the latter concern and that "the relative size of the two buildings was the driving force."

At the June Chapter meeting, according to Chapter minutes, "the issue of the Cathedral’s status with both dioceses was raised." According to Mary Thompson, this came in the form of a statement from Canon Brall at the end of the meeting: "I think the Special Resolution no longer serves the best interests of the Cathedral," rapidly followed by adjournment of the meeting. The Chapter minutes summarize the Special Resolution as intended to "(1) bring people together and engender kindness between ACNA and TEC and (2) draw people to the Cathedral who didn’t want to choose between the two." Reference to the original resolution will of course demonstrate that the second was never an overt object, while the first utterly fails to convey the theological underpinning behind the Special Resolution. With such misunderstanding (at best) even on the representative body of the cathedral, it is perhaps no wonder that people were so easily persuaded to dispense with the Resolution. The assertion was also made that both dioceses were increasingly making the choice not to use the cathedral for diocesan-wide events. It was ultimately agreed that both dioceses need to be approached to find out whether, or indeed if, they viewed the cathedral as integral to their future.

At the August Chapter meeting, reports from discussions with both bishops suggested that neither viewed the status quo as defined by the Special Resolution to be viable. Archbishop Duncan has stated that his view has always been that the Special Resolution functioned well with regard to Chapter and the relationship between the two dioceses, but not as regards the congregation. From this conclusion developed his proposal for what he termed "Phase Two" of the Special Resolution: an evening congregation serving the ACNA members of the parish that would complement a morning service that might either be specifically for TEC or continue the present arrangement. Bishop Price notes that in his meeting he simply restated the fact that the Special Resolution had not helped Trinity to grow. Members of Chapter requested clarification of the statement from the TEC Diocese that the cathedral did not fit in with its mission, but also recommended that both sides be asked to clarify their view of the cathedral’s legal status and that more effective ways be defined to serve both dioceses. Consideration also began of a white paper – prepared by the Canon Provost – discussing future options for Trinity.

According to the Canon Brall’s recollection, the structural deficiencies of the first draft of the white paper in large measure reflected the fact that no one on the executive committee had followed through on its commitment to produce a white paper, forcing her to write one at short notice. While a September 15 report of the executive committee listed exclusive affiliation with ACNA as an option, the first draft of the white paper – presented at the October Chapter meeting – did not. Instead, it worried the existing good relationship with Bishop Price might not carry over to his successor if the Special Resolution endured. It argued that the Resolution had failed to be an agent of reconciliation, that working with both dioceses consumed precious time and energy, and held out the possibility of the TEC diocesan offices relocating to Trinity to provide needed rental income.

In passing, it should be noted that the white paper contained a seemingly unnecessary swipe at the "Anglicans" for moving away from the "Downtown community and the homeless" to the North Shore, despite the fact that the principal congregation of and for the homeless in the neighborhood – with whom the cathedral has worked – is an ACNA one. However, Michael Caligiuri has asked me to convey that he believes this to have arisen from a remark he made earlier that an evening ACNA service designed to attract young adults might have difficulty relating to the homeless population that Trinity continues to serve, a remark that he would also have made of a TEC service catering to a similar demographic.

The essential conservatism of the TEC Diocese was a constant refrain of the white paper, together with the dubious assurance that Trinity would remain "open and welcoming," that a Sunday ACNA evening service was an option – even without the Resolution – and that ACNA clergy could still marry their parishioners at Trinity. It is noteworthy that the Canon Provost made it clear at the November meeting of Chapter that the white paper was for Chapter review only and would not be shared with the wider congregation, an indication, perhaps, that it was not envisaged that the latter would not be involved in the decision to end the Special Resolution. (She is today not sure whether or not she envisaged that a white paper would ultimately be distributed to the congregation).

Discussion and significant amendment of the white paper continued through the fall, but with clear indications that the Chapter remained internally divided. Only at the October and November meetings was the white paper fully discussed by the whole Chapter. Following the December meeting of the executive committee, it was the impression of many members of Chapter, including two members of the executive committee, that debate on the white paper had been postponed indefinitely, that the cathedral would continue to operate under the Special Resolution for the foreseeable future, and that December’s Chapter meeting would concern itself solely with the cathedral’s Strategic Plan. In private, however, several people were pushing for a motion similar to that ultimately presented on December 15.

Walt Adkins – whose comprehensive notes on the subject have been gratefully received – offers perhaps the most useful perspective on the anti-Special Resolution position. As one who has responsibility for buildings and grounds Mr. Adkins has perhaps a more acute sense of structural atrophy than most people. In his view, it was the failure of the two Dioceses to leave their disagreements at the doors of Trinity and focus on a joint program of worship, music and service that celebrated the best of ACNA and TEC that was to blame for the failure of the Special Resolution, not a lack of communication on the part of the "small remnant" that constituted the Trinity congregation. His own observation of certain comments by ACNA members of Chapter (most notably the phrase, "sleeping with the enemy") only confirmed him in the belief that, after months of fruitless debate, "the November Chapter meeting had brought the Special Resolution to its end" and that "any serious participant of the November meeting had heard me declare the [Special Resolution] dead." Postponing its demise would simply have compounded the error.

The Chapter Meeting of December 15

Regular business was conducted in a noticeably perfunctory matter. The final item of business – entitled "white paper/strategic plan" – was announced and Canon Brall reported the executive committee’s recommendation that Chapter focus on strengthening Trinity’s role as a cathedral and address the white paper at a later date.

Even before any discussion on this recommendation could be entertained, Trinity representative Andrew Thiros requested that, since he believed that any discussion must center around the corporate charter, he be allowed to propose a motion reaffirming Trinity’s charter, which was seconded by appointed by TEC clergy representative Scott Quinn. Officially the TEC position was that the property section of the Special Resolution was not considered by TEC to be in effect. At no point did Mr. Thiros discuss the implications for the Special Resolution; that had to be articulated by others. It is the opinion of Walt Adkins that Mr. Thiros has made observations to this effect – though not in the form of a motion – on at least two previous occasions. Bishop Price concurs, noting that while he did not know the form of the motion that was presented in advance, he anticipated that something of the sort would occur after the November meeting. Despite objections from the secretary, Bette Salmon, that the motion was not on the agenda and should therefore only be discussed and voted upon at the next meeting, Canon Brall allowed it to be presented. Under questioning, Mr. Thiros maintained that adherence to the Charter superseded the Special Resolution and stated that his decision to present the motion had been made two days previously and after discussion with certain members of Chapter.

Despite the fact that the executive committee had met just 30 minutes earlier, no hint had been conveyed to at least two of its members, including the secretary. Moreover, no response was forthcoming either from Canon Brall or the chair of the executive committee (the senior warden), Dorothy Amis, as to why other members of the executive committee were kept in the dark. The Canon Provost has stated that she knew that a motion might be put forward but had no specific knowledge of the form – "I don’t know," she says, "who was involved in talking about this." A noteworthy aspect of this selective knowledge is the experience of Chapter member Bill Kaiser, who was told by the husband (not a member of Chapter) of the chair of the executive committee some days prior to the meeting that he hoped Mr. Kaiser would vote in favor of TEC, without specifying what he meant.

Not only was there no prior notice of the motion, but no copies of the motion (or of the Special Resolution and the relevant sections of the charter) were distributed at any stage of the proceedings. Executive committee member Wicks Stephens, like Mr. Thiros an attorney, who also received no advance warning of the motion, warned that the intent of the motion was to end the Special Resolution and he considered the manner of its introduction to be underhanded. Following discussion, Mr. Stephens made a motion to table the reaffirmation of the charter, which failed. According to Michael Caligiuri, however, this motion was to table until April, "an impossibly long time frame to have this motion hanging over us" (on this point, the author doesn't necessarily disagree).

So bad had the atmosphere become that ACNA clergy representative John Cruikshank (who has close family ties to Trinity) then introduced a motion of no confidence in the Canon Provost, which was conducted with the latter still in the chair. The Canon Provost states that she appealed to Bishop Price as to how to proceed, and he responded that she should simply entertain a voice vote. While the motion was subsequently reported to have failed, some of those present are of the opinion that it sounded equal. By the same token, no one requested that a written ballot be taken, which any Chapter member was certainly free to do.

Debate lasted from approximately 5:50 PM until 7:25 PM, and from 6:00 PM onwards the burden of the debate appears to have been borne by the supporters of Special Resolution, including Mary Thompson, a member of the cathedral congregation, whose husband Laurie has been assisting clergy at Trinity. Both are ACNA supporters who agreed to work with the Special Resolution somewhat against their better judgment at first and, in so doing, discovered something of value. They were and are especially disturbed to see the theological principles underpinning the Special Resolution being sacrificed to expediency. Furthermore, in the opinion of Sharon Johnston at least, "questions of legality, procedure or appropriate professionalism were not sufficiently addressed," with the mood of the majority being more along the lines of "let’s put this to bed."

Two members of Chapter – Ed Murry and Michael Caligiuri – did raise the practical necessity of TEC affiliation to Trinity’s identity, while a third, Walt Adkins, expressed concern about the "divisive language" being used by opponents of the motion, but for the most part, at least as far as certain observers were concerned, supporters of the motion sat in silence. Mr. Caligiuri has subsequently communicated to me his own rationale for the, in his words, painful decision to vote in the affirmative which I quote as follows:

Jesus calls us to serve people, not dioceses, and I believe that the Special Resolution was making it progressively more difficult to do that . . . I knew this was an unsustainable situation when Archbishop Duncan told the Executive Committee that he was asking Anglicans ready to leave the cathedral to stay. When someone needs to be asked to stay, there's definitely a problem. If, as time progresses, it's clear to me that being a cathedral interferes with our ability to serve the people, I'll vote then to stop being a cathedral. I believe our calling to serve the least of our brothers is far greater than to serve Bishops and Archbishops.

Finally, and only after she had asked how leaders willing to act in such a fashion could be trusted in the future, Bette Salmon finally called the question, recognizing that debate could not continue indefinitely. The motion to reaffirm the charter of Trinity Cathedral was put and passed by 11 votes to 7 (Canon Brall notes that it actually should have been recorded as 12-7, since Bishop Price voted in favor and has the right to exercise a vote under the charter). No reason was given at the time for why the vote should not be two-thirds (in accordance with the Special Resolution) rather than a simple majority, although as reported above the TEC position is that Special Resolution carried no binding legal authority. Unusually, since there are frequent absences by non-congregational representatives on both sides, all the TEC members of the Chapter were present while three from ACNA – Archbishop Duncan, Donald Bushyager and William Lytle – were not. In a final irony, the listed agenda item was never discussed.

Bishop Price insists that he had had no advance notice of the vote (and the Canon Provost confirmed that she had not alerted either Bishop to what was planned, in itself a remarkable admission) and noted that he delayed offering an opinion in the hope that Archbishop Duncan – who was delayed – would ultimately make it to the meeting. Several observers maintain, however, that in the course of his remarks he shifted from conciliatory language about the need for the dioceses to work together to one of stating that the Special Resolution had been "accepted but not approved" by the TEC diocesan standing committee, that he was the "only ecclesiastical authority" present and that it was his responsibility to "enforce" the charter. According to one witness, he also declared the Special Resolution to be "illegal." For the last three years, of course, he and his Diocese have been complicit in the illegality, by accepting a half-assessment and electing representatives in accordance with the Special Resolution, although Bishop Price argues that such actions were courtesies, in the latter case observed by Diocesan Convention at his request, and not an act of complicity.

Conclusion

While the long-term implications of the December 15 Chapter meeting remain to be seen, it is plain from this account that the Canon Provost’s letter of December 16 is an inadequate summary of what occurred. While the decision may not have been made "lightly" it was certainly made "hastily," and may well have been of dubious legality (the fact that the secretary had no advance notice is a matter of note). Furthermore, the Chapter had indeed achieved a "consensus," namely to put off a decision on the final status of the cathedral in favor of working on the congregation’s strategic goals.

In a recent communication, John Campbell writes as follows:

When I was newly elected to the Cathedral Chapter, Canon Brall sat me down in her office and we reviewed a document she had prepared outlining her expectations for Chapter members. One of the items that she felt was essential to Chapter participation was the ability to reach a consensus. She remarked that the contentious years prior to her tenure were marked by battles between factions resulting in winners and losers, and that she sought to end that behavior through a process of consensus building around the issues at hand. Throughout my time on Chapter, this model was successful. I cannot remember any Chapter vote in which there was more than one or two negative votes or abstentions. Indeed, the process of the composition and approval of the Special Resolution was in itself an ideal model of consensus building.

As Mr. Campbell remarks later, "the Special Resolution was working about as well as it could be expected to." It would never be perfect nor could we expect either or both dioceses always to work with it as we wished; rather it might grow and change and the option to repeal was always there if that was the overwhelming desire of those involved. Furthermore, there was a clear impression – verbally, if not in writing – given in 2008 that this was not for the Chapter alone but for the congregation to decide. The failure to keep that intent uppermost is alarming.

In the final analysis, certain members of Trinity’s leadership decided to return to the political methods that were in vogue before Canon Brall took charge of the cathedral, pushing through a decision by stealth which could easily have been obtained simply by following the provisions of the Special Resolution in securing its termination. As it is, the congregation has now been deprived of the right to decide for itself with which body to affiliate – or indeed whether to continue with the Special Resolution – a right accorded every other congregation in 2008. More importantly, the Chapter has now set a precedent for how business will be conducted in the future. There has been remarkably little effort made since the vote by those who voted for the measure to provide pastoral care for those whom they must have known would be hurt by the decision. Indeed there seems to be a total inability to understand what was wrong not with the choice but with the process by which the choice was made.

The tragedy here is not that the Anglican Church in America lost a cathedral, but that the cathedral family lost its very raison d’être.

No Summary Judgment for TEC in Quincy!

2011-12-16T20:59:00.010-05:00

I suspect that there's not a little irritation currently being voiced at 815 and Goodwin Proctor, and I'm afraid I can't help but find that thought somewhat gratifying.

Update: The Anglican Curmudgeon naturally has some thoughts on the matter.

Update 2: My dear wife last night reminded me of the dangers of hubris and, on reflection, I stand suitably rebuked. My continued hope - which I know is also that of the ACNA legal team in Quincy - is that this ruling will be the precursor to a negotiated settlement that allows both sides to pursue their mission honorably and effectively, one that does not include the sort of stipulations prescribing membership in ACNA that are currently bedeviling the situation here in Pittsburgh. Further litigation will do no one any good.

A word of thanks to an Amazon reviewer

2011-11-06T19:59:00.004-05:00

I never thought that I would earn an Amazon review, since my publications could hardly be described as popular literature, yet back in April I apparently did. Since I have no other means of thanking him/her, I would like publicly to express my appreciation to D. Schweitzer of Okarche, Oklahoma, for taking the time to do a review.

Discerning the Promised Land: Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh Convention, November 5, 2011

2011-11-05T22:56:00.006-04:00

“We are not in it to be right, to justify ourselves, or to look down on others.” With such words did Bishop Neil Lebhar of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese conclude his final teaching of Pittsburgh’s diocesan convention meeting on the grounds of St. Vincent’s College (a Benedictine foundation) in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The warm welcome offered by St. Vincent’s Benedictine prior and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Greensburg, was only reinforced by tales of parishes that had surrendered their buildings only to receive encouragement and aid from sympathetic congregations of other denominations.

For Lebhar – whose Florida congregation was among the first to leave its church building – a willingness to surrender material security for reliance on God to provide should be part of the character of ACNA and he must have welcomed such testimony as that provided by members of All Saints, Rosedale, now happily worshiping in a local Methodist church. Or Paul Cooper of New Life in Mars, whose congregation meets in the local Catholic Church and whose 83-year old churchwarden has a list of eight congregations to be planted before he dies! Or Doug Sherman of St. James in Penn Hills, who reported that all but one congregant had joined the exodus, that the parish was doing much better financially and that “it’s awesome to have [the decision to leave] behind you.” All that was needed to underscore such accounts was the announcement by Chancellor Robert Devlin that this was the first convention that he had attended when the Anglican Diocese was not in litigation. As of the Pennsylvania supreme court decision, parishes whose deeds were in the name of the Board of Trustees no longer owned their property and that decision would not be appealed.

Much of the business of the day, however, was devoted not to existing congregations but to those in embryo, including two new parishes (St. Michael’s, Nashotah, WI, and Trinity, Yuba City, CA); eight mission fellowships (six in Illinois and one each in Iowa and Minnesota); and ten mission fellowships-in-formation (two in Pittsburgh, four in California and five in Illinois). Amid the inevitable presentation of Steelers towels to the out-of-town visitors, mission representatives spoke to the importance of the link with Pittsburgh, however fleeting it might ultimately be. From Sanctuary, Lawrenceville, came words of praise for the Archbishop’s flexibility in the models of mission that he is permitting. The priest at Holy Spirit, Folsom, CA (the town not the prison, as he hastened to add), described a congregation that began in a restaurant and moved to a funeral home chapel. His fears about the cost were allayed when, unprompted, the proprietor observed that “when you get to 100 people we may have to start charging for wear and tear.” Among the most inspiring, the reports from the Chicago greenhouse movement, among them two missions serving Spanish-speaking populations; Church of All Nations, deliberately planted in a low income neighborhood; and Heritage, whose mission is to multiply congregations in nursing homes!

Canon Missioner Mary Hays, in welcoming the new congregations, spoke to her personal experience of serious injury, which had obliged her to slow down and had led her to “hear” better what people were trying to tell her about spiritual and physical burnout. She spoke of a class she had taught at Trinity School for Ministry where even African clergymen had confessed to being “too busy” to pray. Space needs to be created in which God can act, in individual lives and in congregations. Jenni Bartling – celebrating her tenth anniversary as Congregational Developer for New Churches (more like a paid hobby than a job) noted how far the Diocese had come since Archbishop Duncan pledged in 2000 to plant ten congregations in the next decade. Today there was increasing emphasis on local mission; renewal of displaced congregations who, though not new, were now doing something new; and an increasing number of experienced church planters coming forward (as opposed to those embracing church planting because it was “cool.” Other snippets of news about the condition of the Diocese trickled out as the day wore on.

1. Our now customary ballot for diocesan offices with only enough candidates to fill the slots (which led the Archbishop to plead that “the purpose is not Soviet-style voting,” and to encourage anyone wishing to propose names from the floor).

2. The adoption of a resolution to base parish representation on Average Sunday Attendance rather than Communicant Numbers, since ACNA does not collect data on communicant membership.

3. A report that our financial situation has greatly improved since last year, with a small surplus. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that of the $920,000 to be raised from the Godly Share (the voluntary tithe that is now the standard for parish giving), $50,000 comes from parishes outside the territorial diocese.

4. The Anglican Relief and Development Fund has provided $4.9 million for 106 projects around the world.

5. A speaker from Christ Church, Plano, spoke on behalf of Anglican 1000, which, he stressed, is not the church-planting arm of ACNA – only bishops, clergy and lay leaders have the authority to do that. In the time between summer and fall of 2011, the number of church plants known to Anglican 1000 jumped from 130 to 180 (including ten from Cuba). Few dioceses though have the church-planting resources available in Pittsburgh and they should be utilized to the full. When Archbishop Duncan pledged in 2009 to plant 1,000 churches in five years, there was astonishment yet the present auguries are propitious as a new foundation for “biblical, missionary Anglicanism” is laid.

The teachings by Bishop Lebhar and his wife Marcia represented one of the high points of the convention. Conflict in churches, he told the assembly, is “a major problem for American Christians. We go shopping for non-conflict churches – good luck!” We are generally viewed as failures if we’re involved in conflict, and yet sometimes conflict is a necessary part of our spiritual growth. Often the problem is not so much with the information that we gather on a problem but how we interpret it, and it is in the white heat of interpretation that conflict flourishes. In a conflict situation, the default position for those who are afraid is to cling to the familiar rather than to trust in God’s power to preserve us from even the worst of situations. God’s purpose in difficult times is both to humble and to test. Often our preference is to relieve pressures rather than have the inner workings of our hearts revealed. Members of his Diocese were all obliged to go through a process of coming to terms with their lack of control and of learning to forgive their detractors.

Marcia Lebhar later took up the theme of trust with a reflection on the reality of the paucity of water in Canaan as compared with the Israelites’ experience in Egypt. The heart of idolatry is the insistence on a “Plan B” and God has prepared a new Anglican for ACNA that its members must expect on God’s terms. Finally, and at the close of proceedings Bishop Lebhar, introduced the imagery of the challenge posed to Judaism posed by the Romanized culture of Herod the Great’s Caesarea and the warning to the infant Christian Church given by the Epistle of Jude, namely of cultural surrender. “Many Americans,” said, “have become co-dependent on the culture.” His greatest fear for ACNA is that today’s vitality will weaken and acculturation make its way in, for if we acquiesce to the prevailing culture we cannot save those now imprisoned by it.

One curious postscript, a letter from former Bishop Alden Hathaway expressing his love and continuing prayers for Pittsburgh and seeking letter dimissory to the Diocese of South Carolina. Curious because the request was to the ACNA Bishop of Pittsburgh but in respect of the TEC Diocese of South Carolina, albeit in many ways a Diocese of one. Make of it what you will.

I’ve given up predicting when I will finally leave Pittsburgh, as perhaps my devoted readers have now realized. As long as I’m here I will keep the record, for whatever it may be worth.

I've noticed that dear David Wilson and Tara Jernigan have stolen a march on me this year, but I think I make up for it in quantity if not quality.

Faithful Division: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Postmodern Anglicanism

2011-11-03T23:46:00.013-04:00

Review: Nancy James, The Developing Schism Within the Episcopal Church. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.

In the introduction to her recently published history of North American Anglican conflict, Nancy James observes:

Every action and decision entrusted to a bishop reveals the working of his or her mind. In the complex relationship between a bishop and his diocese, or a bishop active in the House of Bishops, or a Bishop in the Anglican Communion, certain theological values are seen in realized action. A lived theology, a bishop acting in history, emphasizes that God moves within human history. The specific task of a bishop is to over-see the church from a theological perspective. To state that this is a controversy about homosexuality might attract journalistic and press attention, but this radical simplification of the controversy misses the heart of why many have poured their hearts into the struggle. (4-5)

James is to be commended for the admirably neutral manner in which she delves into the spiritual journey pursued by the Episcopal Church (TEC) over the past eight years and the ultimate emergence of a new contender on the American denominational scene, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Sadly, this reviewer is unable to accord The Developing Schism an unqualified seal of approval, for its most frustrating feature is not the line that it takes, but the fact that it too often leaves the reader uncertain as to the conclusions its author intends to draw.

Reflective of James’s approach is her opening chapter, which provides background on Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) theologian Charles Price (whose image graces the book’s cover). Price’s life and writings could well have served as a template for the dissolution of relationships within TEC, but instead he flits in and out of the narrative in a somewhat ghostly fashion. Little effort is made to demonstrate either his impact on Broad Church Anglicanism in North America or his relationship with conservative students at VTS and when the principle authority cited in support of his theological importance is a volume of essays written in his honor, the reader can be forgiven for wondering how vital a role he actually played.

James is correct to suggest that a comprehensive account of all groups and movements involved in Anglican realignment would be a monumental task (v-vi), and yet there are significant omissions that leave her argument considerably weakened. As the author of a study of Anglican renewal in Pittsburgh I must confess partiality, but I do feel that confining discussion of Pittsburgh to its bishop (now archbishop) alone is to neglect an important diocesan relationship that preceded Robert Duncan’s arrival in southwestern Pennsylvania and which helped nurture the leading conservative Anglican seminary – Trinity School for Ministry – and foster ties with Anglican provinces in the Global South. Indeed, a section of The Developing Schism entitled “The Formation of Trinity Episcopal School” is noteworthy for the sparseness of references to the seminary in question. (116-119)

If anything, The Developing Schism gives undue prominence to the charismatic elements of the renewal movement, to the detriment of both the Anglo-Catholic and non-charismatic Evangelical contributions. Coupled with the lack of discussion of the establishment of the Anglican Communion Network, the reader is left with the impression that there was no intermediate step between Gene Robinson’s consecration and the departure of the parishes that formed the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) in 2006 and it accords an exaggerated significance to CANA at the expense of, for example, Christ Church, Plano (formerly in the Diocese of Dallas).

Similarly, while James stresses that the beginning of the national schism can be traced to VTS and the Diocese of Virginia (iv), her discussion of the history of the the CANA congregations is patchy. It is not until the reader is more than half way through the book that Truro Episcopal Church is mentioned, and only then in the context of a sermon delivered by Dr. Price in 1987. (119) The construction of the networks of evangelical association that began at Truro during the 1970s is not addressed (nor the role of the now retiring Bishop of Central Florida, John Howe, then an outspoken Evangelical priest at Truro). The influence of the future CANA congregations in the governance of the Diocese of Virginia and the generous financial support they provided in the 1980s and 1990s is also undocumented. Without such context, the casual reader is abruptly thrown into a discussion of the breakdown of relations with Bishop Peter Lee, the drafting of the now notorious Protocol and the celebrated votes of disassociation in 2006 and subsequent lawsuits that seems to emerge from thin air. (149-153, 159-160, 163-167, and 175-179) Equally curious is the abrupt incursion into the narrative of a reference to Pope Benedict XVI that moves unevenly from Benedict’s support for Anglican conservatives to the sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. (181-183) Both topics might have been profitably addressed by James, but here they seem to have no connection to the wider narrative.

At the heart of James’s account are eighteen interviews with prominent figures in the controversy, including two African archbishops, Peter Akinola and Henry Orombi; American conservatives Robert Duncan, John Guernsey, and Martyn Minns; and American progressives Peter Lee, Gene Robinson, John Chane and Louie Crew. Notable by their absence are the present and former Presiding Bishops, Katharine Jefferts Schori and Frank Griswold. While it would have been very effective to use those interviews as the basis for a study of the “mind of the church,” which James does on occasion, the switching back and forth between narrative and personality ultimately works to the detriment of both. Both Peter Lee and John Chane receive considerable attention from James, but ultimately her stream of consciousness mode of description leaves the reader grappling adequately to summarize the theological views of her subjects. It is not that there are no insights, merely that they require great effort on the part of even the informed reader to discern them.

One of the strengths of The Developing Schism, it must be said, is that it does identify a strain of what James terms “remnant theology” that existed in both reappraising and reasserting – to use Kendall Harmon’s terminology – Episcopal groups during the 1970s and 1980s. (28-29) That the former would have largely won the debate within the wider Church by the mid-1990s was by no means assured in the mid-1970s, the acceptance of the ordination of women notwithstanding. If John Allin (who goes unmentioned by James) could be elected Presiding Bishop in 1973 in succession to John Hines, one cannot conclude that TEC’s present course was at that time inevitable. The failure of the center to hold in the late 1980s and early 1990s is one of those questions that historians still struggle to explain definitively. The Developing Schism does not really offer a clear explanation, but the author does document the importance of liberal organizations – particularly members of Integrity – both in lobbying and securing election to policy-making structures within the Church. Indeed, it was a supporter of Integrity – Edmond Browning – who was elected as Allin’s successor as Presiding Bishop in 1985. (51-52)

Some will decry James’s assumption that both sides are seeking out the transcendent, either in “realized justice” or in “religious laws” that “allow the free action of the Holy Spirit,” (40), yet it seems a not unreasonable proposition. Louie Crew’s invoking of the language of “new life of the Spirit” in support of gay identity (48-49) will perplex (or anger) many, but to dismiss it as inauthentic is as unwise as to presume that a traditionalist concern with social morality is mere window-dressing for covert racism and misogyny. James’s chapter on African Anglican identity undoubtedly provides valuable context for what it means to be practitioners of a persecuted faith, whether it be the Ugandan Christian martyrdoms of the Amin era or Peter Akinola’s more personal experience of the darker aspect of Nigerian indigenous religion (67-94).

Towards the close of her story, James identifies a profound truth about spiritual jurisdiction:

The schism raises questions about whether a postmodern diocese is an ontological state rather than a geographical unit . . . Though living on different continents, the Orthodox Anglicans bear resemblance to their charismatic counterparts in Africa . . . Possibly the idea of the sanctity of [the] geographical diocese is an Enlightenment idea whose time is past. (205)

James here enunciates the future Anglican reality – a “postmodern” North American traditionalism that downplays those hierarchical structures that are part of the warp and woof of the churches of their Global South brethren. Here in the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, the decision to explicitly vest all parish property in the parish corporation, while partly a reaction to perceived abuses in TEC, also reflects a new practical congregationalism. Moreover, the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh has been receiving extra-diocesan parishes into its ranks from California to North Carolina and from Wisconsin to Texas since its inception. Such trends may be explained as part of the reality of the mission-centered church, but they also foreshadow new ways of embodying Anglicanism in the twenty-first century.

“Maybe some will regret thoughts they have expressed or deeds they have done,” James concludes, “but in the early twenty-first century, we have witnessed some honest, fallible seekers after God” (227). With such a conclusion, this reviewer wholeheartedly concurs.

The Quincy Litigation

2011-10-11T09:13:00.009-04:00

The following affidavit was submitted into evidence on October 4, 2011. It has an interesting history in that the first draft (involving four months of intensive review of General Convention records) was prepared in response to three separate affidavits, two of them submitted by my counterpart, Dr. Robert Bruce Mullin of General Theological Seminary.

At the eleventh hour, the legal team for TEC in Quincy scrapped the original affidavits and produced a new – and much less detailed – affidavit to which the present affidavit responds.

Not only did TEC sacrifice all the money paid to Dr. Mullin for his opinion, but so last minute was their resubmission that the judge in the case ordered that the costs associated with revising my expert witness testimony be borne by TEC.

Since my affidavit contains executive summaries of TEC’s position, I am not posting a copy of the TEC Statement of Facts (as I did for Fort Worth).

John Stott

2011-07-29T08:31:00.004-04:00

Since Wednesday afternoon, the Anglican blogosphere has been buzzing with the news of the death at the age of ninety of John Stott, rector emeritus of All Souls, Langham Place (a parish conveniently located in close proximity to the studios of the British Broadcasting Corporation) and arguably one of the most prolific Anglican evangelical apologists of the twentieth century.

A contemporary of Billy Graham - whom he introduced to C. S. Lewis in 1955 - Stott had a comparable influence in the evangelical world, but, with the possible exception of his leadership at the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, he was generally removed from the public spotlight.

Tributes are still pouring in from across the world to honor the man whose simple - yet hardly simplistic - biblical exposition still provides context for individual and group study.

What strikes me as most telling, however, is that a man who lived his life within the Church of England, who opposed against early efforts to separate the Evangelical movement from the Church of England in the 1970s, who as late as last year urged Russell Levenson, rector of St. Martin's, Houston, to stay in the Episcopal Church has seen the ecclesiastical polity into which he was born fragment and dissolve, despite his best efforts to the contrary. Born into a world that had but lately witnessed the dissolution of four great temporal empires in Europe and the downfall of the Manchu dynasty, he lived to see the dissolution of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the emergence of China, and the advent of the "Next Christendom", so exhaustively documented by Philip Jenkins.

Perhaps it is the sonorous phrases of Sabine Baring-Gould that he may best be remembered:

What the saints established that I hold for true.
What the saints believèd, that I believe too.
Long as earth endureth, men the faith will hold,
Kingdoms, nations, empires, in destruction rolled.

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud and honor unto Christ the King,
This through countless ages men and angels sing.

Church Politics, Pittsburgh Style

2011-06-01T16:48:00.004-04:00

My good friend and sparring partner, David Wilson, who in another life would not have been out of place as a ward politician but for his lamentable unwillingness to accept financial retainers, has just penned an account of the Pittsburgh clergy group that existed from the mid-1980s until 2008, which former Bishop Alden Hathaway dubbed Thunder on the Theological Right (TOTTR).

David writes:

From the late 1990s through its disbanding in 2008 TOTTR nominated or supported the nomination of every person, lay and ordained, elected to the diocesan Board of Trustees, to the Standing Committee, and as a General Convention Deputy. TOTTR also developed and implemented a strategy within the electing convention to insure the election of a conservative bishop in 1995.

A divergence of opinion in the group began in the fall of 2004 over the future of our evangelical witness within the Episcopal Church. Could we grow or even maintain such a witness in face of the liberal ascendancy and the onslaught of revisionism in TEC? At a meeting in the fall of 2004 all ten members agreed that TEC had no ability to reform itself but we differed however on whether to support George Werner in the upcoming diocesan elections for the General Convention deputation. In an interview as President of the House of Deputies George stated he had voted to consent to the election of the openly homosexual, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Only three of the members pledged to support George. George was not elected as a deputy or alternate.

The divergence surfaced again in the spring of 2007 over the issue of diocesan realignment. Six members supported separating from TEC and four members did not. TOTTR tried to maintain group cohesion in the midst of these differences but the gulf between the re-aligners and the non re-aligners widened. Increasingly the two factions acted more and more independently. The group decided after a particularly painful gathering in May 2008 to cease meeting. A farewell dinner was held at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier in September 2008.

What is fascinating about David's account, amongst other things, is first that it reminds us that politics is part of the business of church life and has been from the beginning. One can lament the necessity, but that such politicking will occur is inevitable. A second point to bear in mind is the manner in which TOTTR splintered over realigment. On the one hand we have such ACNA stalwarts as Geoff Chapman, Peter Moore, John Rodgers, Mark Zimmerman and, of course, David himself. On the other, we have Jeff Murph, Scott Quinn, Jim Shoucair, Brad Wilson, and the now notorious (at least in ACNA's eyes) Jim Simons. And, for good measure, we have the present Bishop of South Carolina, for whom all bets would now appear to be off.

Read the whole thing.

The H-US1918-45 List

2011-05-22T17:58:00.007-04:00

Having just assumed the post of Editor of the H-US1918-45 List, I am posting a copy of my recent call to arms to the membership.

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Dear Colleagues,

As the new lead editor, I wanted to take this opportunity to encourage you to participate in the reinvigoration of the H-US1918-45 List. When I joined in 2003, there was considerable activity and some lively discussions, but in recent years we have experienced a phenomenon common to other H-Net lists, namely, a significant decrease in discursive posts.

My predecessor, Thomas Thurston – to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for keeping the List going – has suggested to me that among the many causes is the superfluity of information now available to any researcher, especially for the 20th century. In the face of an ever-expanding volume of primary sources – many of them online – people are suffering from information overload.

He and I are nevertheless in agreement that we wish to avoid the List becoming solely a means of providing obscure – and sometimes not so obscure – references for researchers (in itself, a worthwhile function). With a subscribed membership of over 1,000, including a number of people like myself who are without institutional affiliation, H-US1918-45 is capable of providing much more.

1. I believe that we are predisposed to think of this as the “New Deal” List, even though its seven years are bookmarked by the 1920s, on the one hand, and the early 1940s on the other. By the same token, there has been comparatively little cultural history debated on the List (the rise of the Regionalist movement in the 1920s, for example), or of such subjects as religious and rural history, even though both are hugely significant for the 1920s and somewhat significant thereafter. Again, there can only be debate on these and other topics if people are willing to bring them to the List.

2. This is a forum for scholarly exchange, particularly for ABD graduate students (and I encourage advisors on the List to get their students to sign up) and those like myself without institutional affiliation. It is in a forum such as this that new approaches to a subject can be tested before exposing them to the harsh glare of the conference circuit. Such exchanges also offer the potential for bringing the like-minded together as conference panels (something less common on this List than some others).

3. There is no reason why a scholarly book review on H-Net should count for less than one printed in an academic journal (although sadly it sometimes does). Reviews that appear here are likely to appear much closer to the date of publication than is generally the case with the print media. If we are to bring book reviews to the List, however, I could use the services of a review editor (the person currently listed in that capacity is no longer a subscriber to the list).

4. The present “Teaching Resources” section of the List is out of date, with many expired links and old curricula. I hope to update it but I would also like to feature written reflections from current instructors about what works and does not work in the classroom.

5. The List can strengthen ties to historic sites and archives by encouraging those employed by such facilities to keep members of the List informed as to what is available, including advance warning of soon-to-be-released material.

I look forward to working with you to make this List a resource that is both current and informative. Your suggestions are always welcome and your direct participation even more so.

Jeremy Bonner, PhD, Co-Editor, H-US1918-45

A Commencement and +Michael Nazir-Ali

2011-05-14T15:05:00.008-04:00

A hot and steamy day in Pittsburgh and the thirty-third commencement of Trinity School for Ministry (TSM), thirty-five years after its inception, at Trinity Cathedral. Today was also the occasion for the award of the one-thousandth degree in TSM's short but eventful existence, a roster that includes many active clergy in the continent of Africa. A reminder of the ties that bind was the award - in absentia - of the title of Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies to Stephen Noll, formerly of TSM and more recently vice-chancellor of Uganda Christian University (2000-2010).

Yet the highlight of the commencement was a sermon from Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali (106th Bishop of Rochester, England). A British citizen of Pakistani origin, Bishop Michael assisted in organizing the 1988 Lambeth Conference and served as General Secretary of the Church Mission Society. He is now President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue. Active in inter-faith dialogue, he has also acquired a certain prominence for his warnings regarding the current trajectory of militant Islam and his refusal to participate in the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

Bishop Michael's homily focused on the Resurrection narratives (noting his early sighting of a Pittsburgh road sign proclaiming Resurrection Avenue - "you can't get better than that!") Calling the post-Resurrection appearances "spine-tingling" and "out of this world, in every sense of that term", he expressed his puzzlement as to why the Apostle Thomas has had such an unfavorable press, given that he is a model for Christians and Christian community. It is he who acknowledges Jesus with the stunning declaration "My Lord and My God". From Thomas, members of the Church - and future clergy - should learn to point always to Jesus and our Lord's encounter with Thomas may be understood in liturgical terms, as both acknowledgment and acclamation.

Bishop Michael decried the tendency of contemporary evangelical revivalism to emphasize the person making the decision to accept Christ, almost to a Pelagian level, when the truth is that such decisions can only be a response to God's choosing and calling. Everyone will have a different story - as it should be - and the call of today's graduating class has been tested and matured and will now be evidenced in ministry. Companionship - not just of God but of mentors - will be important on their present journey.

People say Anglicanism is not confessional, Bishop Michael declared, but that does not mean it is not creedal. It is such a pity when church leaders cannot say Jesus is Lord and God, even though they are ready to accord him titles which even those of other faiths accept. The Great Commission is not the end of ministry, however, but merely the first step in assisting in the formation of Christian people.

In a recent joint-interview with Richard Dawkins, Bishop Michael heard the latter fulminate against the "savage God" whom he perceived in the doctrine of the Atonement. And yet, the bishop responded, to advocate forgiveness without sacrifice is merely a manifestation of cheap grace. Forgiveness has a cost. The Atonement, he declared, "has less to do with a savage God than a savage World."

From the second reading (1 Peter 5:1-11) Bishop Michael drew the conclusion that the apostolic office shares (or should share) in the presbyteral office. He recalled praying with a priest in Rochester who told him that it was the first time in many years of ministry that a bishop had prayed with him, a fact of great sadness to him. The graduates should also seek to cultivate an attitude of complete trust in God, especially during those many times in ministry when they felt themselves to be at a dead end, and of humility in their pastoral office, remembering always that pastoral leadership is a call to serve not to reign.

"Breaking the Logjam": Post-Realigment Pittsburgh Beckons?

2011-02-20T23:26:00.005-05:00

After a hectic few weeks in which two of Pittsburgh’s ACNA parishes (St. Philip’s, Moon Township, and Somerset Anglican Fellowship) elected to reach individual agreements with the TEC Diocese of Pittsburgh, I today attended a meeting at Church of the Ascension called to discuss possible ways forward. There was broad agreement that while individual circumstances differ (parishes whose deed is held by the Trustees of the Diocese of Pittsburgh – the majority – as compared with those who hold their own deed or who only have acquired property since realignment), it is essential that negotiation be, to the greatest extent possible, on a global basis. Following prayers led by Canon Missioner Mary Hays, the floor was turned over to the rectors of the two largest parishes in the Diocese – Jonathan Millard of Church of the Ascension and Geoff Chapman of St. Stephen’s, Sewickley, both members of the Standing Committee.

Reviewing the sequence of events that led to Bishop Price’s letter of February 17, Jonathan Millard noted the concerns about the secrecy surrounding the settlement with Somerset Anglican Fellowship, which had prompted Archbishop Duncan’s subsequent letter to ACNA clergy requesting that they not enter into discussions without at least informing the leadership of the ACNA Diocese of their intention. The letter from Bishop Price, he insisted, must be taken as a genuine commitment to a serious conversation without prejudice, but it is equally clear that there is a strong desire on the TEC Diocese’s part to abide by its canons, as the reference to Diocesan Canon XV.6 makes clear. Jonathan gave it as his opinion that provided engagement with the conversation was sincere, he doubted whether any attempt would be made to take advantage of the March 13 deadline (such as an attempt to replace clergy or vestries in the affected parishes). There were three criteria that he viewed as critical to any settlement: that it allow the parishes to survive; that it allow the ACNA Diocese to flourish as an integrated unity; and that everybody (including TEC leaders) are permitted to observe their fiduciary responsibilities.

Speaking about the diocesan-level negotiations, Geoff Chapman explained that while he understood concern about an excessive degree of secrecy, some confidentiality could not be avoided if progress was to be made. Their own informal exploratory conversations, he said, had been prayerful, friendly, honest, respectful, and with a considerable degree of concern shown on both sides. In his view, the fact that – after two years of stasis – we have begun to move towards negotiations is testimony to God “putting his foot on the accelerator.”

More importantly, he urged people to think about the core values that they wished the ACNA Diocese of Pittsburgh to embody. Not only do all the ACNA parishes need to work together, but they need to create the sort of positive environment in which change can happen. This was not a time, he said, for “trash talking” on blogs, but a time to reach out and embrace those from whom realignment has separated us, so that “we can be at our best and they can be at their best.” From the perspective of the 2005 Stipulation negotiations can only be on a parish-by-parish basis, but he believed that there is hope that some form of global agreement can ultimately be reached that observes the letter of the law without abandoning individual parishes to their fate.

Publicly, the advice from the leadership in the ACNA Diocese is that those who believe that they can walk away from their property without impairing their ministry should do so (though not by turning over their property to the TEC Diocese in advance of a general settlement – the ACNA Diocese Board of Trustees can hold title in the interim), yet not all parishes yet believe that this is their situation and the issue will not be forced (especially since every parish now holds title under ACNA canons, and can’t be forced).

Given the circumstances, this gathering of more than one hundred lay and clerical leaders was comparatively positive, although there was some concern expressed both that the Diocese keep individual parish leaders informed on the progress of negotiations and spell out what it wanted the latter to do at each stage. The tone set by Geoff Chapman and Jonathan Millard, however, was commendable for what it conveyed about the need to separate courtroom confrontation from personal relationship.

Surely that is the essence of today’s appointed Gospel:

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Whither Egypt?

2011-02-12T11:24:00.009-05:00

With the resignation of Hosni Mubarak yesterday, the era of Pan Arab nationalism finally closed. Only ten years younger than the father of modern Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mubarak’s thirty years in power are all that many of Egypt’s 85 million inhabitants have known. The shockwaves emanating from the January 25^th movement are now spreading outward, to Algeria and Morocco, to Yemen and the Gulf, to Jordan, and perhaps even to Syria and Iran.

Twenty-two years ago, as a college freshman, I watched the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe (only months after the bloody denouement in Tiananmen Square). A decade ago, as a newly minted PhD, I watched New York’s Twin Towers slowly crumble into rubble. Both of these events are strongly connected with the past few weeks in Tahrir Square. As we now know, the collapse of the Eastern bloc (and the then Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan) shifted the attention of militant Islam, as embodied in groups such as Al Qaeda, from Communism to – in their eyes – the decadent, capitalist West. The 1990s, infamously dubbed by one commentator as marking the “end of history,” merely tracked the road to September 11, 2001. Beyond that, in turn, lay the great neoconservative gamble – bringing “democracy” to Afghanistan and Iraq, with the wider goal of inducing a form of inverted “domino theory” throughout the Middle East.

A decade on, it is understandable that many view this proposition with skepticism. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are far from where we would wish them to be, though the long-term prospects for the former seem slightly better. Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points serve as a reminder of the dangers of a foreign policy that promotes abstractions like “democracy” without regard to the culture and values of the community toward whom it is directed, but that does not mean that one can simply retreat behind the defense that “they” are not yet ready for democracy (given the level of civic education today, one might wonder if the West is still up to it).

Whatever the virtues of “guided democracy” may once have been, in the information age it simply is no longer possible. Some of those demonstrating in Tahrir Square were overheard declaring that President Mubarak and his circle simply have no conception of modern methods of communication, even something as basic as e-mail. Iran’s stalled Green Revolution, and the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were all structured around such modern forms of communication as Twitter that are the preserve of the young. Its very unstructuredness makes it hard for authoritarian governments to control, but it also perhaps makes it hard to participate in the day-to-day bureaucracy of the conventional political world. The Bolsheviks were prepared to run the organs of government in 1917; the men and women of Tahrir Square, one suspects, are not.

Which, of course, brings up the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood. The reason Hosni Mubarak has survived for so long has been his ability to preserve order, achieved, in no small measure, by marginalizing the Brotherhood and preventing the emergence of secular challengers to his National Democratic Party. In this respect, Mubarak bears some comparison with Indonesia’s former President Suharto, who was driven from office in similar circumstances in 1998. The Muslim Brotherhood present the real conundrum in the present crisis; many of today’s most militant Islamist groups trace their origins to its founders and while the Brotherhood ostensibly espouses nonviolent methods, its public statements convey, at best, a mixed message. Many have warned against a repeat of the Iranian revolution in 1979, where well-organized theocrats were able to subvert the broader campaign against the Shah. When one considers that today’s Egyptian revolutionaries are disproportionately middle-class and the bulk of the population is rural and more culturally conservative, this is not an unreasonable concern. One interesting image that came out of the demonstrations is this Reuters photograph (and the accompanying article by Ann Alexander), which serves as a reminder that nothing is ever as black and white as some commentators tend to believe.

The real problem, though, is that the Brotherhood cannot simply be wished away. The Mubarak solution (detention, rigged elections, marginalization) has been tried and found wanting. If the Brotherhood were to be barred from politics under the new order, it would have to be according to strict criteria that applied equally to extremist parties of all stripes. The better course, though, would surely be to recognize that Indonesia (with strong Muslim parties), Turkey (where the AKP has been praised by Freedom House for its actions in relation to civil liberties), and Iraq (where the Sadrists now sit in government) are all striving to integrate religious parties within democratic systems.

Charles Krauthammer, writing yesterday in the New York Daily News, suggested a comparison between Egypt and Western Europe in the late 1940s, when the United States took steps to prevent the “democratic” election of Communist governments in such countries as Italy. He has a point, as long as it is remembered that the Communist parties in the West – including the unreconstructed Stalinist French Communist Party – were allowed to remain part of the democratic experiment, to hold office and even to run certain cities, a process ultimately leading to the transformation of Italy’s Communists into a democratic party of the Left. Such a goal should be the objective of those countries now engaging with the problem of Islamists in politics, which simple exclusion is unlikely to resolve.

Historical Response in the Fort Worth Litigation

2011-01-07T16:07:00.015-05:00

As is now publicly known, I have undertaken to provide a response to Dr. Robert Mullin's affidavit in the litigation currently under way in Fort Worth (The Episcopal Church et al vs. Franklin Salazar et al).

It seems only fair that it be available to those who are as interested in the historical argument as in matters of law. I will be happy to entertain comments and criticisms. I ask only that readers review the matter of the statement before proceeding further. Most of the sources cited - including many, but not all, of the journals of the General Convention - can be found online (and for free), so you don't have to take my word for it.

January 8 update: The text of Dr. Mullin's statement, to which my paper served as response.

The Strife is O'er, the Battle Won? Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh Convention, November 6, 2010

2010-11-06T17:42:00.005-04:00

Deja vu all over again; yes, dear readers, I'm back for what I sincerely hope will be a final stab at convention journalism, God - and my wife's doctoral defense - willing. Last month for Pittsburgh TEC, this month for Pittsburgh ACNA. Please don't ask why - a form of masochism, I suspect.

Once again out at St. Stephen's, Sewickley, for the second full convention of the new dispensation (I confess to missing last night's dinner and primatial address). Following Morning Prayer, we commenced with a Mission Minute from Bishop Todd Hunter addressing his first convention (a fact which led Archbishop Duncan to remark: "Just imagine being a bishop and never having to do a convention"). Addressing the subject of doing church for the sake of others - a necessary corrective, in his words, for those like himself raised in a conservative evangelical milieu - he spoke of the baby steps necessary for the sort of new church plants he has birthed. "Evangelize the influential," he told us, "and take care of the poor."

The admission of five new parishes followed, those being All Saints Anglican in Springfield, Missouri; Epiphany Anglican in Ligonier, Pennsylvania; Jonah's Call in the East End of Pittsburgh; St. John the Evangelist in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, and St. Matthew's Anglican in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Three of the parishes (Ligonier, Oakmont and Johnstown) reflect the coalescing of ACNA members who belonged to non-realigning congregations.

Diocesan elections then took place, all by voice vote (since there were only enough candidates to fill the vacancies) except for the election of delegates to the provincial assembly. Representation is based upon ASA, with two delegates guaranteed in each order and one extra for every 1,000 of ASA. The top clergy and the top two lay delegates also serve on the provincial council. Currently - given our reported ASA of just over 4,000 - we are entitled to six delegates in each order.

We proceeded to Resolution One - the adoption of the voluntary diocesan tithe (otherwise known as the "godly share"). Although it will take time to implement fully, it is believed that its achievement at all levels of the Church should allow ACNA to function without serious restraint. Stephen Noll - just returned from Uganda Christian University - encouraged parishes also to consider tithing in respect of both mission and outreach. Archbishop Duncan noted that while congregations have the freedom to construct their budgets as they wish, he doesn't know any that don't give at least ten percent and many give away as much as they retain. The resolution passed unanimously, the Archbishop calling it "a great moment in our history."

Further news was then provided of the diocese's financial state, which at the beginning of 2010 was still unclear. A positive cash flow has been maintained all year and diocesan expenses have been kept under control, even as support both from parishes and individuals has increased. By the end of the year we should have a balanced budget. Compensation for the Bishop and Canon to the Ordinary have been restored to 2008 levels. The convention also adopted Resolution Two, allowing for a fifteen-month audit to cover both 2009 and 2010.

A second mission minute was provided by Ben Wilson of Church of the Ascension, attesting to efficacy of Happening. "A spiritual roller-coaster on every end of the spectrum," it offers teenagers living in an uncertain world and studying in high schools of ever-increasing size, a community where they are loved and respected and their voices are allowed to be heard, a place where the love of God is revealed and not merely talked about.

Canon Missioner May Hays spoke of her continued fascination with spiritual fruitfulness and, referring to the passage from John 15 read the previous evening, urged the bearing of fruit that will last. The lack of fruitfulness of her early years in Pittsburgh has given way to pruning and new first fruits, but these should be sprouts not snowdrops. She hoped there would be many more manifestations of the fruits of the spirit in the coming year, noting that while many parishes had in the past struck her merely as "nice," they were now brimming with "exuberant joy."

The Chancellor introduced Resolution Three, protecting non-compensated diocesan officers from personal liability, provided they refrained from "self dealing, willful misconduct or recklessness," an ecclesiastical echo of Pennsylvania's Good Samaritan law. Advance indemnification against legal expenses will be provided and the rules cannot be retroactively altered. This is intended to protect against a "buckshot approach" to litigation. The Chancellor also noted the November 9 date for the hearing of the appeal and that an answer could be expected in the spring. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the resolution passed, as did Resolution Four, a minor modification to the terms of the Growth Fund.

Another mission minute from Andrea Zimmerman dealt with Side by Side, a ministry to unmarried mothers at a time when 40 percent of children in the US are born to one-parent families. It offers among other things, one-on-one mentoring, monthly educational workshops and referral to other professionals and has served 80 mothers and 130 children over the past year. A replication workshop will be held at St. Stephen's next February.

After the "Year in the Life of the Diocese" presentation, another mission minute was provided by the Biblical Literacy Taskforce, working in conjunction with Scripture Union and now boasting 4,000 participating Bible readers. It also offers Bible 101 to parishes, a one-hour orientation to more effective habits of Bible-reading.

The New Church Developer spoke to the highlight of her last year, namely the recruitment of 100 intercessors to pray for church planting and multiplication. These, she said, are the real champions of the church planting movement.

At this point we came to Resolution Five - Creation of District 7 (the Upper Midwest). As is already known, Pittsburgh has ceased to be a purely territorial entity, now including parishes from Raleigh to San Jose. The latest group of parishes requesting admission, however, are modeled on the East African lay catechist model (also known as the greenhouse movement). In answer to my question as to why they are not associating with the Diocese of Quincy, Archbishop Duncan opined that they are not yet ready to associate with more conventional dioceses and we "don't want to mess them up too soon" by forcing them to do so. Pittsburgh is better placed to accommodate the diverse sort of ecclesiastical DNA involved.

A clergy representative from the Upper Midwest then expressed the gratitude of a group of people who since 1993 had been praying for a new province, observing "I've not been to a convention like this in a long time." John Rodgers, who has been closely associated with the greenhouse movement, added the rider that it was a "people movement" that needed freedom to do its own evangelism but still had the necessary checks and balances to secure its Anglican identity. The resolution, naturally passed. "District 7 used to be the City of Pittsburgh," declared the Archbishop cheerfully, "now it's the City of Chicago."

Closely associated with this are two other items of news. One is the already public indication of the admission of Christ Church, Plano, in Texas, something that will boost notional ASA from 4,000 to 6,000-7,000, and provide a very useful financial infusion. Another is that 11-12 congregations in the Chicago area - independent of the greenhouse movement - are likely to petition to join the Diocese of Pittsburgh in the near future. And so, ACNA grows, for now at least.

Don Green of Christian Associates - fresh from attending the TEC convention - now trotted onto the stage, noting that the present ecclesiastical confrontations haven't left ecumenists like him "short on labor opportunities." He offered the very pertinent observation that those from whom ACNA are estranged do not cease to be a part of the Body of Christ and we cannot give up on the ministry of reconciliation. He also spoke movingly of the work of Christian Associates in providing training in care for veterans returning from active service."God bless you as you continue your bold and zealous missionary endeavor," he concluded.

Our postprandial deliberations dealt with changes to the canons relating to implementation of the tithe (Canon XIII and Canon XVI); and second reading of amendments to the Constitution securing parish property indisputably to the parish, with no diocesan or national trust (Article XV) and making the obligation to pay the godly share only "spiritually" binding (Article XI). Whatever else may be said, ACNA has decentralized American Anglicanism in a big way and it is unlikely ever to be able to achieve anything in the future that is not the product of a solid consensus. Whether that will ultimately come to be seen as an albatross remains to be seen, but for now memories of the 'tyranny of the majority' clearly crowd out everything else.

We closed with a courtesy resolution crafted by David Wilson congratulating Tito Zavala - the new Presiding Bishop of The Southern Cone and a long-time associate of Pittsburgh - on his elevation and offering prayerful support to the province that extended "spiritual cover and tremendous support during our time of transition in the forming of the Anglican Church of North America."

And with that, I sincerely hope that this phase of my chronicling is over. It's certainly been a privilege to help trace this turbulent period of American church history.

Pittsburgh (TEC) Convention: Day 2 (October 16)

2010-10-17T08:01:00.010-04:00

Well there's one characteristic that TEC and ACNA conventions increasingly share - resolutions passed unanimously and with little discussion. No doubt when it comes to drafting a diocesan response to the Anglican Covenant - always assuming that it hasn't become a dead letter by then, there will be more difference of opinion, but for now the mind of both conventions seems - on paper, at least - to be uniform. I can imagine that there are many on both sides for whom this comes as a relief. An endless round of resolutions that pass by identical margins (albeit with clear minority opposition) does little to embody the common will of the Body of Christ, but its absence also leaves comparatively little to report.

Yesterday included an appeal from former Trinity Cathedral dean George Werner reflecting - in a point of personal privilege - on how John F. Kennedy's appeal to discern what one could for one's country had been diluted down by contemporary politicians to the simple "I approve this message." He urged the diocese to continue to grow as a community and assume positive intent as we conduct the bishop search for "if we disintegrate into small groups of like mind no system will save us." No problem with the message, but if the speaker was claiming that he was less of a politician in his day than was (and is) David Wilson, I will eat my hat.

The report of the chancellor - absent because his wife is in hospital with cancer - was delivered by Bishop Price. The hearing of the appeal on the 2005 Stipulation will be on November 9, but the court could take up to seven months to deliberate.

An effective presentation by Bill Green on the work of Calvary Camp which continues to thrive at a time when most dioceses are closing their camps. Certainly a ministry to celebrate.

A resolution passed encouraging parishes to resume giving to the national church. No mandatory language, but a reminder that having committed oneself to stay in TEC that there are responsibilities higher up the chain. Didn't seem that different to discussions about the voluntary tithe in ACNA - interesting at the pre-convention meeting I attended there now appears to be ambiguity about how to relate to a parish that doesn't pay a voluntary tithe (for whatever reason).

The call for an episcopal election process extending over eighteen months, with provision for selection by a nominating committee and by petition, but no candidates from the floor (the circumstances of ++Duncan's election have left certain people gun-shy). Unlike last time, however, the nominating committee will not exercise a veto over a petition candidates, nor - I believe - will their candidates be formally identified during the election process.

Various canonical and constitutional changes of minor importance, apart from Canon XIX revision, incorporating Title IV. Since defeat of the proposal would have brought Title IV into effect immediately, I contented myself with abstaining, merely pointing out to the lay delegates some of the flaws in the legislation that could well affect their clergy - they had better make sure the bishop they choose is going to administer it in a pastoral fashion. Of course, the accepted line is that it can't be defied at a diocesan level - which I don't believe - but only modified at General Convention, which some of our clergy plan to do. I did learn afterwards - which explains a lot - that some of the principle drafters have been coming at the revisions from the perspective of child sex abuse cases, and consequently are more concerned with the reputation of the Church than with clergy due process. The trouble is that the new canons aren't specific to that scenario - even if removal of due process in that one case is desirable - but apply to every issue under the sun. Much better to say that sex abuse cases must automatically be passed to the secular authorities and ecclesiastical judgments follow the resolution of such proceedings.

That's about it really. ACNA's report will follow in a couple of weeks.

Pittsburgh (TEC) Convention: Day 1 (October 15)

2010-10-15T20:43:00.006-04:00

A year ago I declared I was done with ecclesiastical journalism and you all breathed a sigh of relief. And here I am back again!

As some readers know I was a delegate to both conventions in 2009 and now - as an alternate elevated to deputy - I'm once again functioning in my bifurcated ACNA/TEC guise, rather like something out of Kafka. Last year, even though the sponsor of a resolution that encouraged parish study of the Anglican Covenant (which passed unanimously), I posted nothing on the TEC convention, largely because there wasn't much happening. This year I feel more inclined to offer some commentary.

Many readers will naturally incline to the "Can anything good come out of Nazareth" school of analysis when it comes to a "rump" TEC Diocese. I'm not sure that this holds even in Fort Worth or San Joaquin, but it definitely doesn't hold in Pittsburgh. Treatment of some conservative clergy on the TEC side has been less than charitable, before and after realignment. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now; in the matter of means vs. ends, I dislike it that the means employed for the end of ACNA are less than perfect.

A case in point for the ambiguity of TEC in post-realignment Pittsburgh was the admission of a new parish - All Saints, Bridgeville - to the diocese. All Saints is led by a crusty - but very loveable - bi-vocational lawyer, Dick Pollard (whose wife Susan is active in the ACNA Diocese!). It's rare to see the good Fr. Pollard emotional, but this one of those moments, as he commended all who had made the worshiping community possible (the membership is about one-third refugees from TEC parishes, one-third refugees from ACNA parishes and the rest from non-Anglican backgrounds). "If you do God's work in God's way, people provide," Dick reminded us, "and today we are giving Him the thanks and the praise."

Other news included expressions of good wishes by Bishop Price to contemporaneous TEC conventions in San Joaquin and Quincy, as well as to retired diocesan Alden Hathaway, the adoption of a new district system with just four districts (reflecting the downturn in active parishes) and the news that Trinity School for Ministry had sponsored the evening refreshments!

But perhaps most interesting was Bishop Price's address, which you can see in its entirety here. Pittsburgh is "better off," he declared, than our counterparts in California, Illinois and Texas, for which we must be "eternally grateful" to the rector of Calvary Church (not sure if a little irony had slipped in here). Furthermore, the prompt deposition of Bishop Duncan meant that the Presiding Bishop "did not have to come to Pittsburgh to convene a special convention" (I know she was present at the other gatherings but I didn't realize she actually convened them). Much more to the point, Pittsburgh had "more parishes, clergy and laity who chose to remain loyal to the Episcopal Church . . . representing a wide diversity of thought and action" (now that is true and should not be sneered at).

Some graceful allusions to ACNA followed; ecumenical and cathedral interaction with the new Archbishop (who has "greater visibility and clout on the global scene" than other ACNA bishops) and a "relatively cooperative" approach to turning over diocesan records. Then a reference to the "distrust, fear and suspicion" that "surrounded life in this diocese leading up to the 2008 split." Now I used to be utterly skeptical about such observations and I know there are those quite happy to fight the liberal corner in southwestern Pennsylvania, but I now know some of the "Rob Eatons" of Pittsburgh and how they were treated when they failed to show adequate loyalty to their bishop, so I have to reserve judgment. By the same token, I can also attest - as a historian - that Pittsburgh liberals in the 1960s and 1970s seem to have been fairly efficient machine politicians too.

So the Diocese now needs to look ahead. To an eighteenth month process of selecting a new bishop; to a parish-by-parish study of the Anglican Covenant in preparation for the drafting of a diocesan response (so my resolution has actually produced a response). An insistence that the Diocese of Pittsburgh "must make its own, unique voice heard," for we are listened to by the Presiding Bishop and the Episcopal Church (here, I must admit, my eyebrows rose a trifle).

The appointment of Jay Geisler of St. Stephen's, McKeesport, as Canon for Formation, building relationships with Trinity School for Ministry and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. An inspired choice this - last year, Jay led the Lenten Study at the realigned Church of the Ascension.

"May we thank God for his many blessing upon us, and for the opportunity to work together in this piece of the Kingdom of Heaven called Pittsburgh." No argument here.

Ah well. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

And I have to do this all over again in two weeks!

Romeward Bound

2010-10-01T09:07:00.007-04:00

On Wednesday, it was reported that the vestry of our former parish of Mount Calvary, Baltimore has voted to follow All Saints Sisters of the Poor into the Roman Catholic Church, under the auspices of Benedict XVI's Anglicanorum Coetibus. This vote is to be confirmed in an all-parish meeting on October 24.

This was the parish from which my wife and I were married in 2004, a small, spiky (in the Anglo Catholic sense) congregation, with pronounced Romeward leanings and very warm hearts. In the Nineteenth Century, its ritualism earned it a reputation for defiance of episcopal authority, but it retained considerable freedom of action within the Diocese of Maryland, not least, I suspect, because its sizable endowment generated a significant slice of diocesan income.

While I am in one sense happy for them if it brings peace, I find the news revives all the uncertainty that Anglicanorum Coetibus inspired in me when it was first announced, all the more so because the Diocese of Maryland has apparently signified a willingness to negotiate a settlement. That in itself is striking, given the way in which the Presiding Bishop warned the Diocese of Virginia off settling with the CANA churches, but of course Mount Calvary has considerable resources and it won't be setting up an alternative Anglican hierarchy.

At a deeper level, though, is it wise to depart not just as a community, but as an organized parish, complete with all accouterments? As I understand it, Pope Benedict is not inclined to establish an Anglican Rite, merely a more developed form of Anglican Use. Basically, it is a recognition of the value of certain liturgical forms and in no way undermines Leo XIII's declaration in Apostolicae Curae as to the invalid character of Anglican Orders. By departing in this manner - as opposed to accepting ordinariate status as a community of souls - the impact of the change is blunted. What guarantee is there that Mount Calvary will be any less of an enclave after the transition than before, a place to which Anglican converts to Rome can resort to sustain their former identity? Of course, if an Anglican Rite were to be accepted by Rome on the same terms as the Uniate and Oriental Catholic churches this might not matter so much. If it is not, surely it would be far better to accept the costs that come with sacrifice (and which earlier generations of Anglican converts have been obliged to bear).

All that said, we wish them well!

October 25 Update:

Mount Calvary voted on two resolutions today at a special meeting following 10:00 Mass:

1) That Mt. Calvary Church separate itself from The Episcopal Church, and

2) That Mt. Calvary Church seek admission to the Roman Catholic Church as an Anglican Use parish.

Both resolutions passed by majorities of almost 85%.

The ballots were counted by two disinterested outsiders: Dr. Daniel Page (a friend of many parishioners who lives nearby) and Sister Mary Joan of the All Saints' Sisters of the Poor.

The ballots were counted in the presence of the Rev. Scott Slater, Canon to the Ordinary of the Diocese of Maryland.

Source: Stand Firm

Alas, How Swift the Moments Fly

2010-09-19T15:22:00.003-04:00

If you haven't ever visited NetHymnal it's well worth taking the time. It's a wonderful resource for identifying both popular and obscure hymnody, complete with musical accompaniment. This morning, I located a piece which had peculiar resonance for me.

Alas! how swift the moments fly!
How flash the years along!
Scarce here, yet gone already by,
The burden of a song.
See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,
And age, with furrowed brow;
Time was—Time shall be—drain the glass—
But where in Time is now?

Time is the measure but of change;
No present hour is found;
The past, the future, fill the range
Of Time’s unceasing round.
Where, then is now? In realms above,
With God’s atoning Lamb,
In regions of eternal love,
Where sits enthroned I AM.

Then pilgrim, let thy joys and tears
On Time no longer lean;
But henceforth all thy hopes and fears
From earth’s affections wean:
To God let votive accents rise;
With truth, with virtue, live;
So all the bliss that Time denies
Eternity shall give.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

On the English Character

2010-08-28T10:48:00.007-04:00

Linklater's wartime novel is a wonderful foray into both the English and Italian psyches (not to mention a truly entertaining read).

Much of what he learnt surprised him. He had always heard that the English were an arrogant, wealthy, and aggressive people; and he was astonished to find that they thought of themselves as very mild and easy-going creatures, chronically hard-up, and habitually deceived or over-ridden by their continental neighbors. They did, however, take pride in their sense of justice, and to Angelo this was quite incomprehensible; for he had often heard of the many millions of Indians, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Basutos, Zulus, Kikuyus, Scots, and Irish whom they held in slavery.

They were curiously heartless, he decided, for although they were far from home, he never saw them weeping and sighing for their distant wives, their deserted lovers, and their half-forgotten children. They wrote, indeed, innumerable letters, but said remarkably little in them. They ate enormously, and were continually making jokes that no adult European could understand: Angelo did his best, but was forced to conclude that their sense of humour, though deceptively robust, was quite elementary. The private soldiers grumbled prodigiously and professed a fearful cynicism about the intentions, practice, and good faith of their Government; yet strangely continued to serve it with zeal and do their duty with alacrity. They appeared to become dirty very easily, for they were always washing themselves. They talked a good deal about fornication, but looked askance at the Americans for their excessive indulgence in it. They all regarded football as a more exacting and therefore more praiseworthy art than making love, and many of them preferred it.

Angelo one day persuaded Simon to speak of English politics. Did Simon, he asked, truly believe in democracy?

'Yes, I think I do.' he answered. 'It doesn't work very well, of course, but what does?'

'Would not the ideal government,' asked Angelo, 'be that of an autocratic ruler who was also a philosopher?'

'Not in England,' said Simon. 'No one would admit that it was ideal, in the first place, and in the second we regard philosophy as a rarefied sort of entertainment, like chess or the more difficult crosswords.'

'You are a Conservative, I suppose?'

'Yes,' said Simon, 'I suppose I am. I have never actually voted, but then I am a member of the Church of England, and except for an occasional wedding I haven't in fact been in church since I left school. The Conservative Party and the Church of England are rather similar in that respect: you can belong to both of them without doing much about it. - I belong to two or three very good clubs, now that I think of it, that I never use though I still pay my subscriptions - But what I do believe in most devoutly is the party system, because when you get tired of the party in power you can always kick it out. You can kick it fairly hard, indeed, throughout its tenure of office. I should say that democracy is really represented by a party with a mind that knows how to act, a tender bottom that tells it when, and a well-shod electorate.'

***************************************************************************

'But there again I see the unfairness that rules the world!' cried Angelo . . . 'Life is war, and we who are virtuous may well lose every battle but the last one.'

'That,' said Simon's friend with noticeable stiffness, 'is the prerogative of the English.'

'Because you are good?' asked Angelo.

'It is an attractive hypothesis,' said Simon.

'There was a time when we aspired to goodness,' said his friend, 'and the world regarded us as hypocrites. Then we decided to pose as realists; and the world said we were effete.'

'But why do you win your last battles?' asked Angelo.

'We are amateurs,' said Simon's friend with a noisy yawn, 'and the amateur lasts longer than the professional.'

Eric Linklater, Private Angelo (London: Buchan and Enright, 1986; orig. pub. 1946), 90-91, 112-113.

Holy War, Unholy Peace: The Chalcedonian Compromise and the Decline of Christianity in the Middle East

2010-05-02T20:36:00.004-04:00

Review: Philip Jenkins, Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years. New York: HarperOne, 2010.

When Philip Jenkins first published The Next Christendom in 2002, it swiftly achieved cult status thanks to its prescient vision of the shifting center of gravity of global Christianity from the industrialized First World to the rapidly expanding nations of the Global South. Eight years on, and after the publication of such works as The New Faces of Christianity (2006) and The Lost History of Christianity (2008), Jenkins has chosen for his subject the narrower canvas of a Fifth Century Christian world menaced from without by the Hunic and Vandal hordes and subverted from within by frenzied doctrinal disputes over the human and divine natures of Christ that pitted the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome against one another. The failure of the theological compromise engineered at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) to reconcile followers of the Monophysite (One Nature) school – centered on Alexandria – to Catholic Christianity set the stage for the withdrawal of members of some of the oldest Christian churches in Syria and Egypt to ultimate eclipse under the suzerainty of an emerging Islamic state that was willing to afford them religious toleration in exchange for political submission. This, as Jenkins soberingly puts it in his penultimate chapter, is “How the Church Lost Half the World.”

Jenkins’ approach concedes the importance of historical contingency. While the vocabulary of the Catholic West has been shaped by the assumption that Chalcedon was a decisive rebuke to the pretensions of Alexandria and the beginning of the inevitable ascendancy of a “Two Nature” understanding of the person of Christ, Jenkins argues that such ascendancy was far from inevitable. Monophysite theology endured throughout the East, even when Chalcedonian-inclined emperors deposed hostile bishops and imposed episcopal overseers more to their liking. Furthermore, the ecclesiastical history of the Fifth Century, as retold by Jenkins, relegates the Roman primacy to a relatively humble position in the struggle, with few occupants of that office – aside from Leo the Great –enjoying the status of the eastern patriarchates. Yet historical contingency goes only so far. “In one sense,” writes Jenkins, “ancient Christians were exactly right to be so passionate about their causes, if not the means by which they pursued them. Far from being philosophical niceties, the central themes in the religious debates really were critical to the definition of Christianity and to the ways in which the faith would develop over the coming centuries. The Christ controversies did, and do, have immense consequences, for culture and politics as much as for religion.” (2-3)

American – and for that matter English – readers will find aspects of the story to have a contemporary ring, a fact to which Jenkins does not fail to allude (15-16). The eclipse of Alexandria and Antioch, he notes, ensured that the church-state alliance promoted by the western Church would become the model for world Christianity, while the Chalcedonian-Monophysite cleavage ensured that Islam would face little resistance in the lands of Christianity’s birth. While the heated nature of theological debate is all too evident today, the lengths to which the protagonists are willing to go in defense of their position are, thankfully, absent. And yet there is a very real irony in discovering that the forerunners of those who today argue for theological pluralism and the free exchange of ideas were more likely to be found within the imperial administration than among ecclesiastical officeholders. For the leaders of the Church, the preservation – at least on paper – of the ideal of an undivided Church left no room for those whose views were, frequently temporarily, in the minority.

The struggle that faced the Fifth Century Church, Jenkins argues, was not over whether Jesus should be considered divine – that had been resolved at Nicaea – but preventing him from becoming “entirely God.” (19) It was, however, a struggle lacking defined processes, and “the councils were marked by name-calling and backstabbing (both figurative and literal), by ruthless plotting and backstairs cabals, and by the pervasive threat of intimidation.” (22) Such debacles as the infamous Second Council of Ephesus of AD 449 (the “Gangster Synod”) offer a less than happy picture of Christian deliberation. The parade of mutual anathemas, depositions and vigilante ‘justice’ which characterize the era from First Nicea (AD 325) to Chalcedon (AD 451) and beyond is far removed from what we often conceive of as the Early Church. Here one arguably finds the second modern-day comparison, since Jenkins argues that the religiously-inspired instability and violence of the period reflect the increasing inability of the state to regulate private violence. While his assertion that violence is no more in the DNA of Islam than it was in Fifth Century Christianity (30) will be controversial, those Monophysite monks who razed pagan temples, assaulted imperial officials and threatened recalcitrant bishops present unhappy testimony to the mood of the times.

Theology, as Jenkins points out, can be a singularly elusive discipline and at times one could be forgiven for thinking that the distinctions served purely as cover for ecclesiastical political maneuvering. And yet the conflict embodied a very real difference in outlook. Between the poles of an Alexandrian church that celebrated the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures of Christ such that the human elements were subsumed in the divine and an Antiochian church that favored notions of the Logos-sax, or the assumption by Christ of a fully human status, lay a grey area that would provide the basis for depositions of patriarchs and bishops. (51-53) Much of the theological language involved subtle distinctions that made misunderstanding and misrepresentation all too easy.

For Alexandria, with its Greek influences and powerful monastic tradition, the age seemed to offer its patriarchs the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Athanasius, who had triumphed over the Arians at Nicea, and propagandize the rest of the Christian world. As the secular Roman world trembled from the onslaughts of the pagans and Arian Christians, Cyril of Alexandria carried the day against Constantinople’s Nestorius (a product of Antioch), for the offense of questioning the title of the Virgin Mary as Theotokos (God-bearer), and with the backing of the Emperor Theodosius II oversaw his deposition at the First Council of Ephesus in AD 431. Eighteen years later, the aforementioned Gangster Synod marked the high tide of the crusade against Antioch by Cyril’s successor Eutyches in a council, which, even by contemporary standards, had more the characteristics of a kangaroo court than a synod of bishops, with critics even prevented from taking notes of the proceedings. (187-192)

The death of Theodosius II in AD 450 paved the way for the Council of Chalcedon and the reversal of Alexandria’s run of success. The new emperor Marcian’s sympathies were with the opponents of Eutyches, as were those of Pope Leo. Chalcedon accepted the condemnation of “Nestorianism” (which did not necessarily correspond with the beliefs of its purported founder) at First Ephesus, but rejected the deliberations of Second Ephesus – and its depositions of those who opposed its teaching – in favor of the “in two natures” formula that later came to inform the wording of the Athanasian Creed. (212-214) As a compromise, however, it represented a distinct shift away from the Alexandrian position and one which many Egyptian Christians profoundly resented. From that date, Egypt would begin a process of steady disassociation, while Antioch – hitherto a bastion of Two-Nature theology – would witness the triumph of the Monophysite party in AD 469. Though the imperial authorities would struggle on for another 200 years, their ability to marry the aims of state and church was increasingly constrained. Quoting the contemporary historian Evagrius on the situation in AD 500, Jenkins strikes a surprisingly familiar note:

the Eastern bishops had no friendly intercourse with those of the West and Africa, nor the latter with those of the East. The evil too became still more monstrous, for neither did the presidents of the eastern churches allow communion among themselves, nor yet those who held the sees of Europe and Africa, much less with those of remote parts. (243)

What lessons, then, can we draw from this narrative? Humility, perhaps, about the inevitability of salvation history. Not that God has no purpose, but that the Church often gropes haphazardly towards divine design. At the same time, however, Chalcedon may be seen as the working out of Divine Providence precisely because at the time it seemed so far from inevitable – a political compromise effected against the reality of Monophysite strength throughout the eastern churches. “Somehow, amazingly, the church preserved its belief that Christ was human as well as God. And today, that belief is the standard, official doctrine for the vast majority of Christian institutions – all Catholic and Orthodox believers as well as virtually all Protestants.” (270)

Jesus Wars packs a great deal into less than 300 pages. It comes well supplied with appendices that provide details on the various councils, doctrinal debates and principal protagonists that are helpful to non-specialist and specialist alike. It has much to teach about the process of theological debate and disagreement and cautionary warnings both to those who glorify consensus and those inclined to view every theological battle as one to be fought to the bitter end. The questions are not new; it is the story of salvation history that is ever-changing.

Henry Orombi: A Church of Bishops

2010-04-10T09:12:00.002-04:00

Here, in a nutshell, is the orthodox/reasserter/conservative view of Anglican polity firmly articulated. Whether or not one agrees with it, it leaves little room for ambiguity. Either bishops - exercising their office in a collegial fashion - have a definitive role in adjudicating matters of faith and order or they do not, in which case provincial autonomy - as in the Lutheran case - beckons. It doesn't look like there's much prospect of going back, particularly since neither side is inclined to trust the other.

Together with Bishop Mouneer, I am equally concerned, as you know, about the shift in the balance of powers among the Instruments of Communion. It was the Primates in 2003 who requested the Lambeth Commission on Communion that ultimately produced the Windsor Report. It was the Primates who received the Windsor Report at our meeting in Dromantine in 2005. It was the Primates, through our Dromantine Communique, who presented the appropriate “hermeneutic” through which to read the Windsor Report. That “hermeneutic,” however, has been obscured by the leadership at St. Andrew’s House who somehow created something we never envisioned called the “Windsor Process.”

The Windsor Report was not a “process.” It was a Report, commissioned by the Primates and received by the Primates. The Primates made specific and clear requests of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. When TEC, particularly, did not clearly answer our questions, we gave them more time in 2007 to clarify their position.

Suddenly, though, after the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam, the Primates no longer had a role to play in the very process they had begun. The process was mysteriously transferred to the Anglican Consultative Council and, more particularly, to the Joint Standing Committee. The Joint Standing Committee has now evolved into the “Standing Committee.” Some suggest that it is the Standing Committee “of the Anglican Communion.”

There is, however, no “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” The Standing Committee has never been approved in its present form by the Primates Meeting or the Lambeth Conference. Rather, it was adopted by itself, with your approval and the approval of the ACC. The fact that five Primates are included in no way represents our Anglican understanding of the role of Primates as metropolitan bishops of their provinces.

Anglicanism is a church of Bishops and, at its best, is conciliar in its governance. The grave crisis before us as a Communion is both a matter of faith as well as order. Matters of faith and order are the domain of Bishops. In a Communion the size of the Anglican Communion, it is unwieldy to think of gathering all the Bishops of the Communion together more frequently than the current pattern of every ten years. That is why the Lambeth Conference in 1998 resolved that the Primates Meeting should be able to “exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters.” (Resolution III.6).

Source: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/29392

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: the East Midlands and Winchester, 1927

2010-03-22T09:22:00.003-04:00

The modern diocesan system is completed. The oversized Diocese of Winchester releases its eastern jurisdictions to create the Dioceses of Guildford and Portsmouth. In the East Midlands, both Derby (released from Southwell) and Leicester (released from Peterborough) achieve diocesan status.

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: Lancashire, 1926

2010-03-22T09:19:00.001-04:00

With the formation of the Diocese of Blackburn, Manchester is reduced to its urban core.

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: West Yorkshire, 1920

2010-03-22T09:11:00.003-04:00

The Diocese of Bradford departs Ripon, leaving Leeds as the latter's principal urban center.

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: the West Midlands, 1918

2010-03-22T09:07:00.002-04:00

The Diocese of Coventry succeeds Birmingham as the newest ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the West Midlands.

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: East Anglia and South Yorkshire, 1914

2010-03-22T08:48:00.005-04:00

Norwich and Ely jointly contribute to the establishment of a diocese to cover Suffolk (St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich), while St. Albans surrenders its jurisdiction in Essex to form the Diocese of Chelmsford. In the north, York releases the last of its urban conurbations to form the Diocese of Sheffield, whose second bishop, Leslie Hunter (1939-1962), would oversee the establishment of the Sheffield Industrial Mission in 1944.

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: the West Midlands, 1906

2010-03-22T08:28:00.003-04:00

Worcester releases its northern region to form the Diocese of Birmingham, whose first diocesan would be Charles Gore. In later years, more liberal theologians would occupy the throne of the author of Lux Mundi, including Ernest Barnes (1924-1953) and Hugh Montefiore (1977-1987).

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England: Greater London, 1905

2010-03-22T08:20:00.005-04:00

Rochester surrenders its western region to create the Diocese of Southwark. Under Mervyn Stockwood (1959-1980), it would acquire a reputation for "South Bank theology," epitomized by Stockwood's appointment of John Robinson as suffragan Bishop of Woolwich.

Diocesan Expansion in the Church of England, 1800-1900

2010-03-22T08:04:00.006-04:00

Changes in diocesan boundaries during the nineteenth century. Five of the seven gains were in the Province of York (Southwell was part of the Province of Canterbury during much of this period), reflecting northern industrialization.

Ripon - 1836
Manchester - 1847
St. Albans - 1877
Liverpool - 1880
Newcastle - 1882
Southwell - 1884
Wakefield - 1888

Ecclesiastical Leadership

2010-03-19T14:22:00.006-04:00

This is Bishop Bell's verdict on Randall Davidson, which is interesting not least for how it might be said to apply to his most recent successor. While they undoubtedly differ in their view of establishment (separated as they are by a World War and eighty years of change), there is at least food for thought.

There are those who are leaders of a cause on the success of which they stake everything they have: and all their efforts, all their acts are devoted to the achievement of their particular plan or their particular doctrine. Such leaders will drive forward as fast as they can, and will cry aloud to their followers to make haste after them. But there is another kind of leader, who having a charge entrusted to him and a body of people at whose head he is placed, rather seeks to act as interpreter of the best mind that is in them and to give it expression, to discover the communis sensus of the society, and to use all the means in his power to give it the opportunity of expression. Such a leader will guide and will show the way, and he will teach and suggest, but he will not be likely to lift his voice from the housetops, and to cry aloud to the laggards to come on at full speed. He will realize the diversity of human nature, of the material with which he has to deal, and will give it, or lead it to, the best and the highest unity of which he believes it to be capable under the given conditions. Such a man will not be the leader of a forlorn hope. His is the leadership of the Chairman or the Moderator. He will wish to keep the boat even, without endangering the passengers. He prefers peace and agreement before violence and confusion. He runs the risk of misrepresentation, and is unlikely to win great popular applause. but he is not on that account to be dismissed as an unsuitable kind of leader in dangerous and unsettled times.

Source: G. K. A. Bell, Randall Davidson: Archbishop of Canterbury (Oxford University Press, 1935), Vol. II, 1161.

Andrew Goddard on the Civil Partnerships Legislation

2010-03-02T17:47:00.002-05:00

It seems so apropos to what I just posted.

Finally, we live in an age in which many are seeking to create a clearer distinction between secular and religious authorities and to limit the role of distinctive faith perspectives in the public square. It is, therefore, an interesting paradox that in a situation where religious bodies are generally acting as a powerful counter-cultural witness by refusing to accept civil partnerships as equivalent to marriage, there are those, both within and outside the church, who are eager to increase the public state-sponsored role of religion when that undermines this stance, increases the influence of a secular agenda for cultural change and heightens tensions and divisions within religious communities as they seek the mind of God on how to respond to same-sex unions in our society.

From: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=516

Plus ca Change? Church Authority Then and Now

2010-03-02T10:35:00.009-05:00

Yesterday, I began to read George Bell's massive two-volume (over 1,300 pages) life of Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1904 to 1928. The last of the Victorian archbishops (and the first not to die in office), Davidson presided over a church that fifteen years into his primacy was already seeking to redefine its relationship to the state and repudiate - albeit subtly - the notion that a man or woman was a member of the Church of England solely by virtue of their citizenship. The Enabling Act of 1919, which created the forerunner to today's General Synod, the Church Assembly, established the principle that Parliament was not the prime shaper of the Church's internal life, while the unseemly dispute over Prayer Book revision in Davidson's final year in office further hardened hearts against the principle of establishment, including Davidson's successor at Canterbury, Michael Ramsey (1961-1974), then a candidate for ordination.

In recent years, of course, the state has largely repudiated establishment as a practical concern (while still no doubt desirous of having the state church conform itself to contemporary social mores) The last archbishop to have a genuine conviction about the appropriateness of that relationship was Robert Runcie (1980-1990), who, thanks to his capacity for being at odds with Margaret Thatcher, was wrongly seen as anti-establishment. For George Carey, it was ultimately more important to be building links with the wider Anglican Communion, while the strident pronouncements of Rowan Williams against the secular state's disregard of religious opinion portend an openness to disestablishment that a Primate like Davidson could not have begun to contemplate.

Establishment is, of course, a largely meaningless term in an American setting, but some of the debates that it provoked in the early twentieth century still have resonance for Anglicans today. From 1888-1890, Davidson, then Dean of Windsor and confidant of Archbishop Benson of Canterbury (having been secretary and son-in-law to Benson's predecessor) was much involved in behind-the-scenes maneuverings surrounding the trial of Bishop Edward King, stemming from charges that the latter had been guilty of certain ritual acts and practices that had been judged illegal by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (and for which certain Anglo-Catholic clergyman had been sent to jail after refusing to desist). These included use of the "Eastward Position" when celebrating the Eucharist, singing of the Agnus Dei after the prayer of consecration, employment of lighted candles when unnecessary for illumination and making the sign of the Cross while giving the Absolution and Benediction.

To the contemporary reader, and especially in the wake of liturgical renewal in the mid-twentieth century, such charges appear the height of absurdity (the court over which Benson presided ultimately ruled most of the practices to be legal) but for low churchmen they were not only attempts to introduce catholic liturgical understandings and practices into Anglican worship but were acts of open defiance against properly constituted authority. Davidson himself understood this when he remarked about one of the imprisoned clergy that a display of the "spirit of obedience, and loyalty to his Bishops, as such, even at some sacrifice of what he cared for, would have an immense effect, in the public mind, in favour of the school he represents." (Davidson to E. S. Talbot, June 22, 1888, in Bell, 131) Later, Davidson urged those Anglo-Catholics who questioned the authority of the church courts to make clear their position on authority:

The great central body of the Church, both clergy and laity, is weary of these strifes. Its members, I believe, care comparatively little for any of the points directly raised, and are anxious to have their minds set free for their larger work - the promotion of the social, moral and religious progress of the people of England. And the strife, such as it is, turns less, after all, upon ritual than authority. Once let us secure somewhere an unchallenged jurisdiction, and the ritual problems will be quickly and quietly solved. (Davidson to the Editor of The Times, April 6, 1889, in Bell, 137)

What might be said to be the relevance of this 120 years on, as the crisis of Anglican authority continues to build? On the face of it, Davidson's critiques sound analogous to positions voiced by leaders of the American Episcopal Church about their conservative opponents (and also within the Church of England establishment). The General Convention has spoken and resistance to its pronouncements is nothing more and nothing less than a defiance of duly constituted authority. What ritualism was to the late 19th century, sexuality has been to the late 20th century. Most people want to get on with the pursuit of "social, moral and religious progress."

There is no doubt that the acrimonious exchanges between contending church parties were as bitter in the 1880s as in the 2000s. And yet, Davidson was himself a man of the Anglican establishment in a way that leaders of the Episcopal Church of the 1880s never were. Moreover, he would have been unlikely to look with complacency on the notion of the Church as a pure democracy, making doctrine by legislative fiat. Most of his successors at Canterbury devoted themselves either to constructing an anti-establishment, ecumenical vision of Anglicanism (the ecumenical catholic model of William Temple, Michael Ramsey and Rowan Williams) or to pursuing the development of an evangelistic Anglican Communion (the missionary Anglican model of Geoffrey Fisher, Donald Coggan and George Carey). However, in neither case was any attempt made to fashion some form of canon law that would, however pastorally applied, govern Anglicanism as it developed from a Canterbury-centered concern to a global community. The transition from clerical to democratic leadership - at least in the Global North Anglican churches - may well have had many things to recommend it, but in terms of raising up an authority in which all sides might have confidence it fell lamentably short of the situation prevailing in a more 'authoritarian' era.

Writing History: The Church of England Today

2010-01-29T10:24:00.007-05:00

My apologies to all those who have been dropping by and wonder why there has been no update since November. When I started this blog, I vowed that it would keep to a reasonably scholarly format, which meant either my own research or church news for which I was a primary source in my own right.

With the practical recognition of both an Episcopal and an Anglican jurisdiction in Pittsburgh (not by the leadership of either, as yet, but most of us in the pews are a little more practical), I rather think my reporting stint is suspended (which is not to say other things will not be posted in the future).

Academically, I am presently engaged in helping edit a collection of essays on Catholic lay activism from the 1920s to the 1970s, including a personally authored chapter on the rise of elected lay assemblies at both the parochial and diocesan level. While not necessarily convinced of the virtues of ecclesiastical democracy (the record of mainline American Protestantism in that area is mixed at best), it seems to me a topic worthy of greater exploration.

On a different note – and this is particularly for my English Anglican readers – I am in the preliminary stages of an entirely different project, namely, a history of the Church of England from 1908 to 2008. As the son of a distinguished church historian, Gerald Bonner, it has always struck me how gratifying it would be to cooperate in a work of history. While my father is best known for his work on Augustine of Hippo and Early Christian Northumbria, when he first joined the Theology Department of the University of Durham, he found himself – as the only scholar trained as a historian – responsible for most of the church history surveys. He has also actively participated in such bodies as the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius and known three different Archbishops of Canterbury: Michael Ramsey (in retirement), George Carey (as a student) and Rowan Williams (as a fellow academic). His is a life that began with the Anglo-Catholic revival of the 1920s and has been a witness to so many of the changes and chances of this fleeting Anglican milieu. While my scholarly career has, thus far, tended to focus on modern American history, my study of the changes in the shape of the Diocese of Pittsburgh has inspired me with a new interest in the church in which I was raised.

To date there have been two major synthetic works: Roger Lloyd’s, The Church of England (the final edition of which ran from 1900 to 1965) and Paul Welsby’s, A History of the Church of England, 1945-1980. No tome that I have been able to locate offers analysis of the Runcie and Carey years (and a biography of the latter still remains to be written). It is therefore my father’s and my hope that we can together provide a narrative that shows the passage of the Church of England from the bang of the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908 to the whimper of the Lambeth Conference of 2008. Our proposed schema appears below:

Our World Has Passed Away: The Church of England in a Post-Erastian Era, 1908-2008

Part I: A People’s Church: The Dilemma of Anglican Establishment

1. For All We Have and Are: Randall Davidson’s Church of England, 1908-1918.

2. In Courage Keep Your Heart: The Anglo Catholic Revival, 1918-1928.

3. No Law Except the Sword: The Church in a Totalitarian Era, 1928-1945.

Part II: A Common Fellowship: The Struggle for Ecumenical Comprehensiveness

4. The Ages’ Slow-Bought Gain: Geoffrey Fisher and the Emergence of Global Anglicanism, 1945-1961.

5. Renewed and Re-Renewed: The Catholic Movement’s Last Hurrah, 1961-1975.

Part III: A Setting Sun: The Resurgence of Denominationalism

6. To Face the Naked Days: The Anglican Counterculture in Thatcherite Britain, 1975-1988.

7. The Old Commandments Stand: The New Evangelicals and the Rise of the Global South, 1988-1998.

8. There is But One Task for All: Rowan Williams and the Collapse of the Anglican Consensus, 1998-2008.

I invite any reader with awareness of more obscure sources to which we might ultimately turn to leave a message in the comments section. I do not yet know the timetable for conducting formal research, but any information – from any school of churchmanship – will be warmly welcomed.

Like A Mighty Army Moves the Church of God: Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh Convention, November 7, 2009

2009-11-08T00:29:00.013-05:00

From across southwestern Pennsylvania (and beyond) American Anglicans flocked to their first convention as – explicitly – the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh (a nonprofit corporation bearing that name now exists). St. Stephen’s, Sewickley, may be commodious but, even so, space was at a premium.

Morning Prayer brought an ironic twist, when the second lesson – Revelation 17, no less – was presented by means of an audiovisual Bible series, with interesting special effects and a voiceover read by none other than John Guest. As far as I could tell the sage of Grove Farm was not physically present (though he was at Monroeville in 2008) but to hear that mellifluous English accent recounting the vision of the Whore of Babylon and the Beast with seven heads and ten horns was unusual, to say the least. Coupled with the other assigned passage from Ezra on the sin of the Israelites in intermarrying with the peoples of the land, one couldn’t help but wonder about the way the lectionary can sometimes fall.

The first order of business was to bring before the assembly the new parishes seeking admission. These included Harvest Anglican Fellowship in Homer City, which drew its first members from members of the congregations in Blairsville and Indiana who rejected the latter’s decision not to realign; the largely African-American Church of the Transfiguration in Cleveland, Ohio; St. James in San Jose, California, whose members left St. Edward’s Episcopal this spring and who have a vision to plant a diocese in the San Francisco Bay area (an endeavor, Archbishop Duncan remarked, in which Pittsburghers should be glad to cooperate); and Holy Trinity in Raleigh, North Carolina, launched in 2004 but the fruit of twenty-five years of visioning by Garland Tucker, and now one of the larger parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, with a membership of around 300.

Archbishop Duncan then introduced two visitors from the Province of Tanzania, noting the connection forged by Alfred Stanway as Tanzanian missionary bishop and later as president of Trinity School for Ministry. There was an enduring connection, he said between the East African Revival and the renewal movement in western Pennsylvania. Bishop John Lupaa brought greetings from his Archbishop and from the 100,000 Christians in 263 churches in the Rift Valley. “I love the Lord,” he told delegates, “the Lord is my Savior and I am serving Him.” Bishop Jacob Chimeledya of the Diocese of Mpwapwa (the father of five children aged from 32 to 3½), whose diocese encompasses 500 congregations, described how, at a recent prayer meeting, healing was given to two people suffering from blindness. He praised the formation of ACNA, saying it had encouraged the churches in Africa after they had lost faith in The Episcopal Church.

Canon Missioner Mary Hays then rose to address the issues of “clergy, church planting and confession.” Pittsburgh’s clergy, she said, are a remarkable group of men and women who have made many sacrifices, not least the recent indignity of being “released” from ordained ministry. She quoted a recent e-mail from a clergyperson who wrote: “It is a great honor to serve among these presbyters at this momentous time in the Church.” On church planting, she recalled the words of Bob Logan ten years ago that anyone can plant a church. Today we have begun to recognize that it’s not a case of either preserving small congregations or planting new ones, but that the latter only strengthen the former. Yesterday the Archbishop had called for 1,000 new churches in the United States in five years and everyone had a part to play in this venture, whether in prayer, funding-raising, spiritual gift discernment or something greater. “It’s time for us not to be cozy or comfortable,” she concluded, adding that, from the point of view of “confession,” we needed to acknowledge that “we’re a part of the reason we’re in this mess.” If that were not so, church planting would have been taking place to a much greater degree in the past decade.

As if to reinforce this admonition, there followed introductions of extra-parochial clergy, who included the leader of a student group in Amherst, Massachusetts (who, brave woman, has the Fairfield brothers, Andrew and Leslie, as part of her team); a recently ordained Canadian clergywoman, whose orders are not recognized by the Anglican Church of Canada; Tom Herrick of the Titus Institute for Church Planting, a former employee of the Anglican Communion Network; ACNA’s first VA chaplain, serving in West Virginia and helping families reintegrate after the return of members of the military from active service; the pastor of Cleveland’s Church of the Transfiguration who prayed to God for months to send the congregation a priest only eventually to get the message “I’m trying”; and David Bane, former Bishop of Southern Virginia, who ultimately discovered he was no longer welcome in the church in which both he and his father has served. Perhaps most striking was the testimony of Father Vincent Raj of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Salinas, California. A priest in the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real (he just retired from the Board of Trustees) Father Raj was at Plano in 2003 and described how he had struggled to hold on his catholic roots from which TEC had now severed him. He was here to commit to ACNA and Archbishop Duncan. A short while later, Canon Daryl Fenton, just back from a trip to Myanmar, brought greetings from that nation. The challenges we face here, he pointed out, are very small compared to those who have nothing but “faith and guts.”

From such heights we passed to the more prosaic matter of the budget. The major shift, as noted in my pre-convention report, is the adoption of the biblical tithe as the standard for giving by parishes to the diocese (as is already the standard for diocesan giving to the province). This was adopted unanimously, although a priest from Atonement, Carnegie, urged that an absolute biblical tithe (not a tithe based on an average of the past three years’ income) be the norm. Jonathan Millard, rector of Church of the Ascension and member of the Standing Committee, then reported that the “Staying Faithful” fund had just received a $300,000 donation, together with a pledge of $200,000 in matching funds from someone not associated with the diocese. He added that the Standing Committee had consulted widely and prayed and fasted before reaching their decision to appeal Judge James’s decision and had noted the admonition of many of the need to “take a stand” on something that is “manifestly unfair,” citing the possible threat posed by the decision to parish – not just diocesan – property. (Interestingly, two other members of Standing Committee spoke to me privately about my letter regarding the appeal and told me of their conviction that this action was also necessary as a way of giving voice to the rights of those in even less friendly jurisdictions.)

Back in October, I was struck by the presence of Don Green of Christian Associates of Southwestern Pennsylvania (the local ecumenical association) at the TEC diocesan convention and yet today here he was again, with the timely reminder that the past year had not been an easy journey for us or “our sisters and brothers” in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. He commended the fact that the Archbishop continued to attend ecumenical gatherings and contribute to the work of finding ways to give public witness to a common faith. He noted the pending admission of the Church in God in Christ and the Mennonites to Christian Associates next year and the work of the Allegheny Jail Ministry, which had cut recidivism rates from 65% to 16%.

Three resolutions now stood before convention and in the first I took direct personal interest. Entitled “The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh – Who We are in Christ,” it affirmed the Jerusalem Declaration as a summary of the essentials of our faith and pledged submission to the leadership of the GAFCON membership “as we look to our future as an orthodox and missionary movement in world Anglicanism.” On seeing the text, I was struck by the omission of any reference to the Anglican Covenant and so drafted an amendment that read as follows:

And be it further resolved that, in harmony with the resolution of the ACNA Provincial Council of June 22, 2009, we express our continued willingness to subscribe to the un-amended Ridley Cambridge Draft of the Anglican Covenant.

In retrospect, it may be that I overestimated the potential for opposition (especially as the sponsor Geoff Chapman afterwards told me that he would have accepted it as a friendly amendment), but so much of what I have read of late has been phrased as if the Jamaica debacle ended any meaningful possibility of change, so I pitched my advocacy in terms of catholic responsibility and the possibility that the Archbishop who is ultimately responsible for implementing the Covenant may not be the present incumbent. Archbishop Duncan then stated that he had been responsible for the provincial council resolution and that – since the amendment referred to the original Ridley Cambridge Draft (with its disciplinary language) - he would “enthusiastically” support it. In response to a request from the floor for the context of the draft, he gave a very polished account of how events since 2003 had led to the Covenant, noting further that it had originally been conceived among the proposals in "To Mend the Net." The resolution passed unanimously.

A second resolution upholding the sanctity of life was introduced by Becky Spanos, 30 years after the first such resolution was adopted in Pittsburgh. Throughout that period, she said, NOEL had tried to change the culture of the Episcopal Church and failed. While some of the language in the resolution might seem stark, “we can’t abort forty million more babies,” particularly when there are so many resources available for parents in need. Co-sponsor Tara Jernigan added that the resolution was the result of many parochial consultations in which she had been asked for the church teaching on this issue. The resolution passed unanimously.

Finally, a courtesy resolution celebrating the work of last year’s Celebrate 250 organizers and of retiring archivist Lynne Wohleber was adopted, and a standing ovation offered, at the prompting of David Wilson, to long-term diocesan historiographer Father John Leggett.

The final business concerned revisions to Constitution and Canons, many of them simply reflecting the shift from TEC to ACNA, with the significant change that all parish property is to be vested solely in the parish corporation. The only debate came over the wisdom of leaving the shelter of the Southern Cone, as far as Anglican identity was concerned, to which Archbishop Duncan responded that Archbishop Venables had encouraged him to embrace the new ACNA framework, but would keep clergy on the Southern Cone books in a form of “dual citizenship” as a safety measure. As vicar general for Archbishop Venables for North America, the link with Canterbury would be maintained, and he would attend the Synod of the Southern Cone next year for the election of Archbishop Venables’ successor. A motion of thanks to the Southern Cone for their hospitality was approved.

A note should here be given of the “multiplication minutes” – short presentations of innovative types of ministry that serve to build up the Body of Christ – that occurred throughout regular business. From St. Philip’s, Moon Township, came news of the new “mission-shaped communities” (MSC) composed of roughly 40 members (small enough for clear vision and large enough for action). An outgrowth of Alpha, they provided the first opportunity for service for many new Christians and in Moon had chosen to focus on reaching children and young adults with physical and emotional needs. From St. Christopher’s, Cranberry, came word of how a congregation with around eighty members had discerned its calling to plant in an area of rapid population increase not one church of 500 people but five churches of 100. From the conveners of the ecumenical Kairos Ministry came news of cursillo adapted to a prison context and the urge to “plant” a church within a penitentiary. After four years, other country jails had observed the results and were asking Kairos teams to come in. Take your best men’s cursillo, one of the priests involved (who testified to conversion from ten years of intravenous drug use) attested and multiply that by one hundred. Their converts included several Muslims and even one follower of Wicca. Finally, from Grace Anglican in Slippery Rock, news of raising up almost a dozen future priests, all but one under twenty-five. “There’s nothing more powerful,” declared the rector Ethan Magness, “than when anthropology and Christology connect with Calvary.”

I have been writing these accounts of Pittsburgh diocesan conventions since 2006. I rather suspect this will be my last for now. I trust that all you who have followed my progress have enjoyed my selections and have been appropriately edified. For this historian it has been a truly remarkable ride.

A Man of His Time? Rowan Williams and the Crisis of Anglican Order

2009-11-04T17:33:00.020-05:00

Review: Rupert Shortt, Rowan’s Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2008).

“Rowan’s room for manoeuvre on the national stage was always going to be limited in important respects. For example, it is hard to defend an establishment institution in decline, particularly when you have a reputation for being anti-establishment. It is hard to defend English culture, of which the Church is a part, when you are committed to multiculturalism . . . And it is hard to avoid compromising yourself by taking conservative views into account, whether Evangelical or Roman Catholic, when you are committed to ecumenism and mutual respect.” (279)

When Randall Thomas Davidson was enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury in 1903, the relationship of the Church of England to the nation state, both at home and in the colonies, was paramount in Anglican identity. The next twenty years formed the cusp of the ecumenical movement, marked by such noteworthy events as the Edinburgh Missionary Conference (1910), the Patriarch of Constantinople’s appeal for Christian unity (1920), the Anglican-Catholic Malines conversations (1921-1927), and the Lausanne World Conference on Faith and Order (1927). By contrast, Anglicanism’s search for denominational identity and authority remained at low ebb, not least because Anglican establishment provided all the glue necessary to bind Anglicans throughout the empire together.

A century later, and the relative importance of these elements – erastianism, ecumenism and conciliarism – had been almost completely reversed. The Church of England’s ties to the state looked remarkably threadbare; as Lady Bracknell might have remarked, establishment had “ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up.” Ecumenical dialogue, though in some ways more structured than at the beginning of the 20th century, had also lost much of the fiery optimism that had governed the earlier conversations, as the prospects of organic unity receded, the failure of Anglican-Methodist unity talks under Michael Ramsey during the 1970s being an obvious case in point. Conciliarism, by contrast, had assumed center stage as rapidly growing national churches in the Global South achieved provincial independence and long-established national churches in the Global North pushed the limits of Anglican diversity. While all of Michael Ramsey’s successors experienced pressure to redefine Canterbury’s status as primus inter pares, it was only with the primacy of Rowan Williams that this issue took on an urgency that could not be gainsaid.

One of the great Anglican “what ifs” of the 21st century will surely be the course of the Anglican Communion had Richard Chartres or Michael Nazir-Ali succeeded George Carey in 2002. One may argue that the then Bishops of London and Rochester would have been obliged to moderate their forceful rhetoric once they filled the chair of St. Augustine and that the role of Archbishop of Canterbury has always been limited. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Rowan Williams has put his stamp on the course of events that stretches from the Windsor Report of 2004 to the Dromantine and Dar-es-Salaam meetings and the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The question inevitably arises as to what drives the present Archbishop of Canterbury to act as he has done. Rupert Shortt’s biography provides some excellent insights into the world of the man on whose watch the Anglican consensus finally began to crumble.

This is a sympathetic though not uncritical account of an ecclesiastic generally acknowledged to be one of the great minds of Anglican theology in the second half of the twentieth century. Of the three archbishops who in the last hundred years had a claim to original theological scholarship, Shortt ranks Williams considerably higher than William Temple or Michael Ramsey, although he admits that such intellectual mastery is not always contiguous with clarity, noting theologian Oliver O’Donovan’s verdict that Rowan wishes to “make Christianity difficult – reversing the strategy of the apologist who wants to purge religion of its bewildering aspects – but then making a missionary opportunity out of the resulting sense of dislocation.” (13) He also cites a passage from Williams’ Lost Icons, in which the latter warns of ‘all kinds of difficulty about appealing as a moral sanction to the danger of diminishing the solidity of the self by ignoring the perceptions of others,’ which Shortt helpfully translates as “talking in a diffuse way about the danger of selfishness.” (224)

Conservative Anglicans may well feel that while Shortt exposes the exaggerations and oversimplifications of all the archbishop’s critics, he has much less sympathy with those on the theological ‘right.’ Writing of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, he describes many African bishops as displaying a double standard on sexuality, having appealed only a decade earlier for tolerance on the issue of polygamy, even though the latter question had been concerned less with permitting already converted Christians to have additional wives as with the procedures to be followed with an already polygamous household that converted to Christianity. (205) While Stephen Noll would probably have no problem being described as “stridently conservative” (227) Andrew Goddard may bridle at being referred to as an “outspoken hardliner,” and the allusion to the “squadron” of Oxford-based Evangelicals who mobilized to oppose Jeffrey John’s appointment conjures up some wonderful images (268). Much of this is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Shortt may not like the more conservative Evangelicals, but he lets them speak and also demonstrates how much they still have in common with Williams. Moreover, anyone who believes that stridency in orthodox circles invariably (as opposed to generally) correlates with a passion for truth obviously needs to read a little more widely.

In his account of Williams’ early life, Shortt draws particular attention to the former’s reputation as an intellectual high-flyer and his early emergence as a critic of the prevailing liberal theological consensus at both Oxford and Cambridge. The procession of teachers who were soon obliged to admit that they had nothing more to teach him becomes annoyingly repetitive. More singular was Williams’ dissent from the presumptions of such works as John Robinson’s Honest to God (1962) or the essays in Soundings: Essays Concerning Christian Understanding (1963). His rejection of the notion of Jesus solely as a moral mentor and conviction of the basic truth of the Gospels foreshadowed a counter-cultural stance that sits ill with today’s perception of him as an apologist for unbridled modernism. His early interest in both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are well documented – not least his doctoral dissertation on Vladimir Lossky – and his fascination with the writings of Early Church Fathers would endure. Nevertheless, his was not a straightforward conservatism:

In the theological scheme to which Rowan felt increasingly drawn, liberals tended to err through saying too little, while many conservatives overlooked the dangers of saying too much. The most credible stance was based on a balance between two sorts of awareness – that religious truth (as opposed to truth revealed in a test tube) can never be simple or slick, because it lies at a depth where things are often murky; but the burrowing process must be engaged with unflagging commitment nonetheless. (98)

Williams’ subsequent academic career at Cambridge (chaplain at Wescott House and Clare College) and Oxford (Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity) demonstrates certain character traits that remain with him to this day, including a predisposition toward conflict avoidance and a profound sympathy with the underdog. (108) It also witnessed his first engagement with the issue of homosexuality and the Church’s response to it, perhaps most notably in The Body’s Grace, a 1989 lecture that affirmed his basic conviction that changes in the theology of sexuality could not be made by reference to prevailing social mores but must be informed by scriptural principles. (143-146) This was not, as Shortt makes clear, the sole – or even principal – preoccupation of these years. Williams’ prodigious literary output revealed a deeply grounded Trinitarian faith and conviction of a God active in human history, though Shortt treats Williams’ exploration of the Church’s role in the political sphere as insufficiently nuanced.

The chapter on Williams’ translation to the Diocese of Monmouth throws further light on his pastoral development. Shortt does not spare his subject in noting his failure to implement needful but drastic administrative reforms or his willingness to accept people for ordination out of sympathy for their personal story rather than conviction of their call. What does emerge, however, is a picture of a pastoral bishop desirous of being accessible to his flock. Equally revealing are the facts that he was the only Welsh bishop to support an evangelistic initiative known as Good News in Wales and was an active promoter of church plants (something that might come as a surprise to many Evangelicals). Among other formative experiences, Shortt devotes significant space to the lasting impact of being present at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. (212-222)

Williams’ elevation to Canterbury was received with enthusiasm by a wide spectrum of opinion, a sentiment that would hardly last the year. Citing Oliver O’Donovan’s prescient confidential letter of July 4, 2002, Shortt draws attention to the telling phrase that “the efforts of the harder elements [of the Global South], initially intended to focus on you, are to be directed more constructively, to the general question of accountability and authority within the Anglican Communion,” (243) even as Williams’ record on the presenting issue of homosexuality – on which both sides drew for encouragement – was recognized to be “a highly forthright lecture, an open-handed pastoral policy, and a declaration of deference to the collective mind of the Church.” (244)

It is clear that until 2003, the Archbishop continued to hew to the view that better communication rather than enhanced central authority was the cure for the Communion’s ills. The Jeffrey John affair, which Shortt describes in detail (264-277), demonstrated both Williams’ commitment to the mind of the Church in overseeing his own province and the vast gulf between his critics on left and right. It also revealed his dangerous ability to see all sides of the argument and rarely to convey to anyone in personal conversation that he disagreed with them (less helpful in a bishop than an academic). That said, the aftermath of John’s rejection and Vicki Gene Robinson’s consecration as Bishop of New Hampshire saw an incremental shift in his thinking toward the more structured model for the Anglican Communion envisaged in the Virginia Report. Shortt has little time for conservative critics like Peter Jensen or Bob Duncan – he uses the phrase “purporting to be on a golfing holiday” to describe Duncan’s presence at the 2005 Dromantine meeting (312) – but he recognizes their impact and he refrains from expressing a personal view of the famous meeting of 2004 at which, supposedly, archepiscopal approval for the Anglican Communion Network was given. (288-289).

By the spring of 2006, it was evident that the actual choices to be made reposed not in England but in Africa and the United States. The aftermath of the 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the appeal for alternative primatial oversight, the election of Martyn Minns as a Nigerian missionary bishop and the subsequent vote of the Northern Virginia parishes all testified to something very different from the two-tier Communion that Williams had proposed. Shortt’s account of the Dar-es-Salaam meeting (367-369) is a little one-sided, since it is presented as a defeat for the principle of a separate American province sought by Peter Akinola, rather than as an acceptance of the principle of the need for external oversight, something later rejected by the Episcopal Church.

What is harder to discern, as one moves into the account of GAFCON and the Lambeth Conference of 2008, is how Shortt understands Rowan Williams’ current view of authority. At home, the Archbishop undoubtedly is as aware of the post-erastian reality of English Anglicanism (which Shortt regards as the underlying point of his much-debated sharia address) as many of his critics. What is not clear is how he wishes to apply these principles elsewhere. The failure to exclude the consecrators of Bishop Robinson as well as Robinson himself from the Lambeth Conference, surely laid him open to the charge that it was Robinson’s character not the principle of breaking the bonds of Communion that was at issue. Shortt also notes the positive comments of Williams on the GAFCON meeting, even as he disagreed with its structural solution (409-410), something that would be consistent with earlier statements that he had made, but calculated to perplex his liberal admirers.

Williams’ later remarks on the tone of the debate on women bishops in the Church of England testify to recognition on his part that, ultimately, holding everything together may prove to be a bridge too far. It is noteworthy that this biography was published prior to the contentious February 2009 meeting of General Synod that rejected statutory protections for Anglo Catholics and the even more embarrassing debacle at the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Jamaica that witnessed the gutting of Clause Four of the Anglican Covenant, without which it is debatable if any meaningful confessional identity for the Anglican Communion could be assured. To read this biography is to understand better what shapes the mind of the present Archbishop of Canterbury but it fails to explain why one so passionately convinced of the importance of organic unity and so evidently committed to historic Christology has shied from articulating an overt defense of those who have sought to do the same. Given his clear recognition of the declining importance of the national church, it would surely not have gone beyond his brief to offer more than nominal moral support to like-minded Anglicans in other provinces. By his deference to the leadership of other national churches, Rowan Williams may ultimately have precipitated the eventuality that one feels he always wished to avoid.

An Open Letter to the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican Church in North America)

2009-10-30T11:49:00.006-04:00

October 30, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Having recently expressed my concerns to the leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (The Episcopal Church) regarding their stance on Judge James’s decision, I feel it only consistent to note my opposition to the intent of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican Church in North America), as reported in today’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to appeal that decision.

Over the five years that I have been in Pittsburgh, I have taken as a given that the embrace of “miraculous expectation and missionary grace” was a sincere one, even as I learned – as one might reasonably expect – that perfect behavior in all things is for the Church Triumphant rather than the Church Militant. So often have I heard the wise advice to trust in God’s Providence and to refrain from fretting about the future. Concurrently, however, engagement in the legal process, employing the same types of legal argument concerning ultimate jurisdiction and property law as invoked by lawyers for The Episcopal Church, has continued.

Ultimately, at least from this historian’s perspective, there is no way to prove the original intent of Episcopal Church structures, not least because the first generation of church leaders carefully refrained from a single explicit declaration of the corporate nature of the church. All we have are moral claims, which are precisely those upon which the secular courts are unwilling to render an opinion.

It has been frequently asserted that the ACNA diocese has always been willing to negotiate in good faith and that defending against aggressive motions does not contravene the scriptural imperative against lawsuits among Christians. This seems to me like special pleading. If ACNA does indeed have a special purpose in God’s design, then it seems equally plausible that an initial failure in the courts is either a way of telling us that we must “let goods and kindred go” without complaint, or, alternatively, that God is providing an occasion for grace on the part of The Episcopal Church to reach an Overland Park-style resolution. If we are intended to be a new post-millennial, post-institutional body, then among the patterns of behavior that we must set aside is an American understanding of property of which many of us have been only recent stewards.

The future mode of ACNA is apparently to be a decentralized federation of churches (I’m still not sure how we reconcile the model Geoff Chapman described at the Sewickley pre-convention meeting with a catholic ecclesiology, but at least I can understand the reasons why it might be desired). Fighting so fervently on behalf of a lingering diocesan authority that we do not intend to retain in the future is not, to my way of thinking, compatible with that.

While I realize that my perspective is probably a minority one, in retrospect I do think it unfortunate that we never had separate votes – as was done in Virginia – on realignment as a principle and, separately, on recourse to the courts as part of the realignment strategy. Those opposed to court action and who make diocesan pledges to ACNA – as I do – are thus as obliged to see our money being used for a purpose of which we disapprove as are conservatives still in TEC.

I would ask that you carefully reflect and solicit views from a spectrum of people within the diocese before proceeding down the road currently contemplated. A future historian of ACNA would, I feel sure, much prefer to recount a story of a formative church beneath the trees than of one locked in courtroom conflict.

Sincerely, Jeremy Bonner, PhD, Trinity Cathedral

An Open Letter to the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh

2009-10-10T08:56:00.002-04:00

October 10, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I write to express my concern about the tone of the recent letter released on the diocesan website. While I have always accepted that, at least from a purely legal point of view, both diocesan entities could make a reasonable claim to the endowment, I had hoped that a spirit of pragmatism would enter into any proceedings concerning parish ownership. A generous reading of the aforementioned letter suggests that a mediated process might lead to a transfer of parish property, but it is so hedged about with reservations that it might almost be better to have said outright that nothing short of a return to the Episcopal Church would enable realigned conservatives to remain in their property.

I am one of probably a rather small number who believes that ACNA's participation in the present legal case was unwise, not because realignment could not legally occur - I happen to believe that it could - but because getting involved in the first place has served only to distract attention from what ACNA claims to be about and prolong the bitterness. That said, the language of reconciliation employed here simply does not comport with reality. If you simply wish to reclaim all parish buildings, then say so. If you wish to extract a "fair market value," then say that.

While I recognize that the Standing Committee embraces a wide spectrum of theological opinion, those of you actively involved in the work of the pre-realignment diocese understand what drove realignment, even if you disagreed with the strategy.To say that "you do not wish to punish" is frankly patronizing (I fear there is no other word), particularly given the fact that such reassurance should be entirely unnecessary if you are simply carrying out a "fiduciary duty." More to the point, you know that for many in Pittsburgh the time for the accomplishment of "fruitful things" has long since passed. It may perhaps be achievable by the right people at the right place and time, but members of the realigned diocese are not the right people and this is not the right place and time for them.

Some of us had hoped to be able to create a framework in which there could continue to be relationships across the Episcopal/Anglican divide, perhaps the only place in the United States where conditions favored such a strategy. The severing of bonds between clergy who have worked together for years is particularly sad. I will not claim that there have been no statements or actions from the other side that have accentuated the present unpleasantness, but I confidently predict that a letter of this sort will formalize the divide in perpetuity. For some on Standing Committee that may be no great loss, but not, I suspect, for all.

Sincerely, Jeremy Bonner, PhD, Trinity Cathedral

"Force is not the Means by which We Lead or Govern"

2009-10-08T20:25:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, in accordance with my duties as Trinity Cathedral delegate to two diocesan conventions (yes, dear reader, two; I suspect it must be some sort of record to be an accredited delegate to two rival conventions under such circumstances), I followed up my visit to Calvary Church for the TEC pre-convention meeting with a trip out to Sewickley for the ACNA pre-convention meeting at St. Stephen's Church. Of the Calvary meeting, I will say only that it was generally unremarkable (Judge James's ruling having yet to be delivered) and most of the discussion dealt with budgetary issues and revisions of the canons to bring them back into accord with the national church. For those intrigued by the emerging shape of the new province, however, I suspect some who were not there might find the matters discussed at the ACNA pre-convention to be of interest.

On Wednesday, delegates gathered in the shadow of the court decision. Archbishop Duncan was in sunny mood, however, a disposition no doubt enhanced by the knowledge that his audience was comprised of the faithful. Discussion of the budget - now dependent on assessment income alone - involved the proposal to move the diocese from mandatory assessments to a voluntary tithe. The latter is a plank of ACNA thinking on stewardship, embracing the biblical norm of giving, and Pittsburgh has set as a goal the giving of 10 percent of its income to the new province (leaders of the province have in turn promised to offer significant financial support to underwrite the office of the archbishop). As a first step, redirected giving by parishes - instituted in 1996 to allow congregations to refrain from giving to TEC - will be ended and parishes (and individuals) strongly encouraged to make the tithe the standard of giving. Next year's convention will then institute first reading of a change to the constitution that will make all giving voluntary. Sewickley rector Geoff Chapman commended these moves as helping to build mutual trust and greater interdependence and yet, as the archbishop acknowledged, this is obviously a step of faith for the leadership. Assessment income is down from a 2009 budget figure of $1,549,088 to $931,491 in 2010 (or $870,172 if every parish went with the tithe, since several large parishes are currently assessed at 11 percent). Later, in a discussion on elections to the new board of trustees, the archbishop cheerfully responded to a question on their function in a post-endowment world, by stating that they would be responsible for "the many things that will be given us."

Also reviewed were new guidelines for clergy compensation, including maternity and paternity leave (Jonathan Millard inquired if this was to be retroactive). The loss of access to the Church Pension Fund, Archbishop Duncan admitted, was a sore blow, given its defined benefits, especially for disabled clergy. Any new pension scheme will only reflect the level of contributions. At present the search is on for good disability insurance that will provide some degree of protection to clergy just beginning their careers.

Perhaps most fascinating was the report from Canon Hays on the admission of new non-geographic parishes. Present were a group from Church of the Transfiguration in Cleveland, OH, who together with Harvest Anglican in Homer City, PA; St. James, San Jose, CA, and Holy Trinity, Raleigh, NC, will be admitted into union at convention. The news provoked a question from Dennett Buettner as to why a parish in San Jose had not joined San Joaquin, to which Canon Hays responded that they had female candidates for ordination and that, after examining all the new dioceses, they considered Pittsburgh to be the best fit. A Silicon Valley-based congregation they had, she said, a desire to plant a new diocese in the Bay area! Tina Lockett then rose to ask the archbishop whether it in fact the case that "we're still not tied to geography" and that the possibility existed that even a Pittsburgh-based congregation could elect to seek union with another jurisdiction. Archbishop Duncan responded that while it had been agreed among the bishops that both must agree on transfers - San Joaquin had concurred in the San Jose initiative - he doubted if any ACNA bishop would seek to restrain a congregation that wished to "move" elsewhere. Something upon which to ponder!

Resolutions setting the Jerusalem Declaration as the standard of belief and upholding the sanctity of human life were reviewed in short order, before a march began through proposed changes to constitution and canons. While many simply involved deletion of references to TEC, there were some more substantive alterations. Canon 1 sees a shift from membership in the Province of the Southern Cone to membership in the Anglican Church in North America, prompting they question of whether membership in the Anglican Communion continued to be assured by the fact that all ACNA bishops had seats in the house of bishops of other provinces. Archbishop Duncan confirmed this, at the same time noting with a twinkle that the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter acknowledging the formation of ACNA (addressed to the Most Reverend Robert Duncan) had managed to convey the impression that this was an ingenious arrangement to retain membership. Of course, the archbishop added, "he'll never say that publicly." Elsewhere, the Array (the court of ecclesiastical discipline) is to be reconfigured to provide a review committee and identify responsibilities and powers; parishes given more freedom to set up in close proximity (in case of eviction); the requirement to maintain full-time clergy for parish status is eliminated; and all parish property is now to be vested in the parish. Geoff Chapman here intervened to ask if every parish will have the ultimate right of disassociation from ACNA and was informed that the necessary change will be made next year.

The emphasis on subsidiarity was all to evident throughout the meeting. As the quote from Archbishop Duncan that heads this report clearly demonstrates, ACNA will in some measure revert to the model found in TEC throughout much of the 19th century. The test will come in a few years when a measure of stability has been achieved. It will also be interesting to see how it meshes with leadership models among ACNA's African allies and whether it will even come to shape behaviors across the theological divide. Congregational it undoubtedly is, but will its Anglican roots make it something more than that?

By the end of the meeting the archbishop was in upbeat mood. We've proved, he said, we can live without the endowments, so even if we choose not to appeal, we are secure. He pledged that even this year's convention will be different, with alternates and observers free to sit among the delegates. We may do some things according to legislative procedures, he concluded, but we're not a legislative body but a family. And in a sense he's right. Comradeship in adversity has welded together the inner circle of those who have worked with Bob Duncan since he first came to Pittsburgh and the wider body of believers in Pittsburgh who belong to ACNA. It's interesting for me that while I still identify with ACNA as much as I do with any institution, at neither pre-convention meeting did I feel myself to be wholly there. Perhaps I've just spent too long writing about a pre-realignment diocese. There are just too many missing faces (everywhere) for me to feel entirely comfortable. "We have the future," the archbishop insisted, while those in TEC "have only the past." What sort of future, I wonder.

The Agony of Possession

2009-10-07T15:59:00.009-04:00

For some while I have contemplated an articulation of my thoughts on the war for diocesan and parish property currently being waged in my home diocese and across the United States between the Episcopal Church (TEC) and the newly formed Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Yesterday, Judge James’s decision burst on the scene, broadly supporting the position of the TEC diocese that they are entitled to the entirety of the diocesan endowment (parish property is not addressed under this ruling). While some on the conservative side are no doubt gearing up for an appeal (the fact that there appear to be conflicting bases for recent decisions against ACNA in Pittsburgh and Fort Worth even suggest that appeals could ultimately end up in the Supreme Court), I find myself wondering what such legal contortions have to do with the mission of ACNA itself.

I should perhaps preface my remarks with some explanation on my own experience of being an Anglican. In the course of thirty-eight years, I have been a member of four parishes: the middle-of-the-road Church of England parish of St. Cuthbert’s. Durham (1970-1992); the gaudily extrovert Anglo Catholic bastion of St. Paul’s, K Street in Washington DC (1992-2003); the equally high, but more down-to-earth foundation of Mount Calvary, Baltimore (2003-2004); and the utterly un-categorizable Trinity Cathedral in Pittsburgh (2004-2009). All have contributed to my understanding of what it means to be first a Christian and secondly an Anglican.

In the course of my seventeen years in the United States (more or less the same period of time that Archbishop Robert Duncan has served in Pittsburgh in a variety of guises), the configuration of Anglicanism – both in the United States and worldwide – has been transformed. Parallel jurisdictions, heavily influenced by a strongly countercultural brand of Evangelicalism, exist throughout the English-speaking world, filling a void created, at least in part, by the failure of successive Archbishops of Canterbury to articulate a vision of mutually dependent provinces that minimizes dramatic shifts in doctrinal belief and practice at a provincial level. In the United States, the pace of theological innovation – of which Bishop Gene Robinson is a symptom not the cause – has precipitated an alternative body for conservative Anglicans (ACNA) that currently occupies an uncertain position within the structures of global Anglicanism. All of this is amply documented, but would attract little attention in the secular world but for two factors: the prominent part that the debate over human sexuality has played in the conflict between liberal and conservative Christians and the struggle for ecclesiastical assets. It is the latter that concerns me here.

My experience of the property conflict is shaped by my five years in Pittsburgh, as much an observer of how the recent past has shaped the present as a player in the world of diocesan politics. I have no great stake in diocesan institutions one way or the other, although I have developed a number of spiritual associations and friendships for which I am devoutly grateful. There are others who stand to lose far more than I in terms of long-standing family connections to particular parishes or significant contributions to diocesan projects and endowment funds. That said, the following arguments have been advanced in favor of an aggressive legal strategy by the conservative side:

1. Preservation of parish property for the active worshipping community, which has sustained it with minimal input from the diocese and practically none from the national church.

The appeal to the rights of property holders is, of course, deeply buried in the American psyche. Practical congregationalism has very much been the norm in American religious life since colonial days, and while national church bodies emerged during the 19th century, they tended to be comparatively weak (a state of affairs heightened by the internecine strife that erupted in many Protestant denominations over the Fundamentalist Controversy in the 1910s). The Episcopal Church was no exception to this tendency, with a weak national structure that only began to solidify during the late 1950s (ironically about the same time that denominational numbers began their precipitate decline). The last thing that the Episcopal Church’s bishops desired was direct responsibility for the running of the parishes in their care. Bishops were responsible for missions (whose incumbents they could appoint or remove at will), but incorporated parishes stood very much on their rights. A bishop’s power was ultimately negative (a refusal to perform episcopal acts, such as Confirmation) and a refusal to license clergy from outside the diocese. Once a clergyman was canonically resident, however, an incorporated parish could call him even in the face of the bishop’s disapproval, as Pittsburgh Bishop Cortlandt Whitehead discovered to his cost in 1912.A form of congregationalism upon which was superimposed an episcopal polity was thus the working norm.

A fair reading of the historical record, therefore, would seem to imply the virtue of a pragmatic distribution of parish properties according to the majority sentiment of their congregations, when serious doctrinal divisions arise, with the goal, as far as possible, of continuing an effective worshipping community in the sacred space. Rarely are decisions of this sort as overwhelming as they were in Northern Virginia in 2006, however. What does one do, for example, in the case of a 60%-40% split, especially if the 40% provide a greater proportion of the parochial income? What obligations do the “winners” have to the “losers” in such a scenario, if, as seems more and more to be the case, there is little appetite for negotiating a compromise? Should those with long attachment to the parish be granted rights to marry and bury and to hold periodic services in the church?

It’s dangerously easy to dismiss the gripes of the minority as those of “sore losers” but if we accept that the Church is not, in its essence, a democracy, then we should avoid putting too much faith in the democratic process as infallibly revealing God’s will. That sort of language has been all too evident at recent sessions of General Convention and it is not a positive development. Those looking to “come out and be separate” then, if they wish to make a claim to property, need to start with an assessment of the needs of those who will reject such a course, which usually includes both those who share their views but reject their strategy and those who fundamentally disagree with their views. A building and even a diocesan endowment fund are fleeting assets, as compared with the income secured from consistent and dedicated pledgers. More to the point, the notion that “they’re trying to steal our property” is now as rife on the conservative side as on the liberal one, even though the “property,” if we have our priorities right, is God’s to dispose of as He sees fit. This does not mean that one should be entirely passive in such matters, but it should make the legal approach (and that, at least to me, includes defending against a suit as well as initiating it) one into which you enter at great personal risk.

2. Preventing the exploitation of buildings or other assets by those who would use them to propound a “false Gospel.

A rationale now much in vogue in conservative circles is to ensure that monies currently under their control do not fall into the hands of heretics. Successive legal battles deplete the national church’s financial reserves until a point is reached at which TEC will have no choice but to capitulate and reach an agreement with their opponents. Again, providing the legal points being contested are genuine, this would seem to be a legitimate legal strategy.

But is it what the Christian life calls us to pursue? Although there is a fair degree of liberal commentary that describes ACNA as an “un-Anglican” body, it still largely remains the preserve of conservatives to describe their opponents as “non-Christians.” Frankly, I find it hard to accept this as a blanket designation. There is plenty of non-Christian behavior evident, but unfortunately that’s not unheard of in orthodox circles (even here in Pittsburgh). Within TEC, there is a worldview whose concessions to the prevailing culture have compromised its ability to proclaim the Gospel – and have brought us to the pass of realignment – but that doesn’t necessarily translate into assured destruction for all in the TEC camp. It is at least arguable whether preventing corporate (not individual) monies from the affected dioceses to pass in any form to TEC and its subsidiaries is something to be ensured by any and all means. Some TEC programs funded – especially at the diocesan level – will be positive or, at any rate, innocuous, while some, of course, will not, but there is a distinct difference between redirecting funds (as was the case in the early years of the Anglican Communion Network) and calculated asset-stripping.

3. Bringing public attention to bear on constitutional abuses of the polity of the Episcopal Church, most notably the infamous Dennis Canon, and forcing ultimate acknowledgment of the essentially congregational nature of TEC in matters of property.

We now come to the crux of the matter, namely that actions taken by TEC in recent months run counter to the very Constitution and Canons they have in place, the deposition of Bishop Duncan being a case in point. The voluminous writings of such legal observers as the Anglican Curmudgeon provide extensive commentary on this point. It seems fairly clear that TEC is, in large measure, willing (in a paraphrase of the old moniker about the Supreme Court) to make the Constitution and Canons what the Presiding Bishop and the Executive Council say it is. That is undeniable; it is also not ACNA’s problem. It is a very real problem for conservatives within TEC and one with which they will have to wrestle in the years ahead, but for ACNA conservatives to huff and puff about the illegality of TEC practices seems misplaced. After all many have written – and continue to write – as if this was only to be expected, so surprise and outrage seem a little contrived.

More to the point, the whole basis of the new post-Constantinean model of “doing Church” has been predicated on ending any state interest in the affairs of ecclesiastical bodies. The present recourse to the courts is essentially an appeal to the state to resolve issues that the latter cannot begin fully to understand. We really need good divorce lawyers handling these cases, not experts in Canon Law. None of this is to say that I think TEC has a particularly good moral claim to property (after all, while most of the 19th century men and women who helped create the major endowments wouldn’t have got on very well with the present ACNA leadership, they would have had even less time for today's liberal revisionists) but it does call into question whether a courtroom confrontation is the best venue for fighting such a battle. Property is becoming an encumbrance as people are distracted by litigation from doing the work of mission that ACNA’s leaders proclaimed at Bedford.

I close with another little Tolkien paradigm that seems apposite, just after Frodo has offered Galadriel the Ring and she has refused it. “I wish,” Sam Gamgee tells her, “you’d take his Ring. You’d put things to rights. You’d stop them digging up the gaffer and turning him adrift. You’d make some folk pay for their dirty work.” “I would,” Galadriel responds. “That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas!”

Are we listening?

The End of a Chapter

2009-07-14T08:56:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, 220 years after its constitutional documents were adopted, The Episcopal Church (TEC) at its triennial assembly (the General Convention) in Anaheim arguably brought to an end its ambiguous double-life as both Anglican and Episcopalian. To put it another way, it finally conceded the logic of American denominational identity, which most of its mainline Protestant neighbors have long accepted, that it is a national church, bound by historical bonds of affection to other churches in the Anglican tradition but in no way obligated to look beyond the concerns of its members in discerning the future direction of its mission and ministry.

There have been other more bitter conventions. One can think of the harsh words exchanged between Evangelicals and Anglo Catholics in the 1870s, the "change of name" controversy at the beginning of the twentieth century, the struggle over "fundamentalism" in the early 1920s, the fractious debates over civil rights in the 1960s and female ordination in the 1970s. Sometimes there have been departures - the Reformed Episcopal Church in the 1870s or the Continuing Churches in the 1970s - but they were always on a small scale and did not ruffle relations with the Church of England. The year 2009, the culmination of events that began with Gene Robinson's election as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, looks set to be different. At both the global level and within the Church of England, there now stands the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, whose members subscribe to the Jerusalem Declaration issued by the Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008. Furthermore, a motion now looks likely to be presented at the Church of England's General Synod later this month to debate the future relationship of the Church of England to the newly formed Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Many observers will naturally argue, as indeed did Bishop Stacy Sauls, that the resolution in question (DO25) sought merely to reassert TEC's right to discern priestly vocation in its own cultural context and that it does not overturn a moratorium on the election on noncelibate homosexual clergy to the episcopate passed in 2006 (BO33). Those passionately demanding repeal of BO33 present at Anaheim, including The Reverend Susan Russell of All Saints, Pasadena, clearly do not see it that way.

There are plenty of well-informed sites now digesting the immediate consequences (as the links above testify) but the historical implications are equally fascinating. The whole pattern of schism (which is part and parcel of the American religious experience) has played out very differently in an Episcopal and Anglican context than anywhere else. Dual identity (one foot trapped in its English roots and one firmly planted on American soil) for years kept Episcopalians locked in a religious holding pattern that precluded formal separation (the fact that it was the only denomination to reunite almost immediately after the Civil War, where other Protestant groups endured as much as 100 years apart testifies to this). The institutionalist mentality - reflecting the state church status of its English parent - permitted a considerable diversity of opinion, while ensuring the election of bishops of generally conservative outlook but tolerant of clerical and lay dissent short of open defiance. Heresy trials were few, contentious issues generally shelved and congregational independence accepted de facto if not de jure.

The change that has come since the 1960s has followed both upon a change in the composition of the episcopal order and the decline of its standing as primus inter pares in church government. The prophetic mantle assumed by many bishops since Presiding Bishop John Hines - commendably - took it upon himself openly to challenge Southern segregation has undermined the corporate witness and collegiality of the House of Bishops. The upper house of General Convention seems increasingly to be viewed merely as a kind of religious Senate, which, despite the election of its members by the people of their dioceses, does not properly represent the popular will in the way that members of the House of Deputies do. It is interesting, given Bishop Robinson's expressed fears before the vote that he doubted the commitment of his colleagues to DO25, that it passed by much the same margin as his election in Minneapolis in 2003.

The other dimension is the global one. View them as interfering African schismatics or traditional Anglicans who cannot see a warrant for recent innovations, Global South leaders are now engaged with the process and closely associated with the new congregations of ACNA. Even at the height of its missionary activity (mostly in the Philippines and China), TEC never had the sense of identification with other Anglicans that many members of ACNA now do. Some of that is force of circumstance - especially for those communities who for a while relied on an African bishop for oversight - but it would be absurd to talk as if that was all there was to the relationship (it would be wrong, incidentally, to suggest that there are no deep transnational relationships, between members of TEC and Third World provinces, but in the current context they cannot be the same).

Schism Anglican Style. As (Arch)Bishop Duncan remarked to me a few years ago, there are many dissertations in the making. Let's hope there will soon be the seminaries to hire their authors.

Update: Statement of Kendall Harmon on Resolution D025

The passage of Resolution D025 by the General Convention of 2009 is a repudiation of Holy Scripture as the church has received and understood it ecumenically in the East and West. It is also a clear rejection of the mutual responsibility and interdependence to which we are called as Anglicans. That it is also a snub to the Archbishop of Canterbury this week while General Synod is occurring in York only adds insult to injury.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the BBC, the New York Times and Integrity all see what is being done here. There are now some participants in the 76th General Convention who are trying to pretend that a yes to D025 is NOT a no to B033. Jesus’ statement about letting your yes be yes and your no be no is apt here. These types of attempted obfuscations are utterly unconvincing. The Bishop of Arizona rightly noted in his blog that D025 was "a defacto repudiation of" B033.

The presuppositions of Resolution D025 are revealing. For a whole series of recent General Conventions resolutions have been passed which are thought to be descriptive by some, but understood to be prescriptive by others. The 2007 Primates Communique spoke to this tendency when they stated “they deeply regret a lack of clarity”on the part of the 75th General Convention.

What is particularly noteworthy, however, is that Episcopal Church Resolutions and claimed stances said to be descriptive at one time are more and more interpreted to be prescriptive thereafter. Now, in Resolution D025, the descriptive and the prescriptive have merged. You could hear this clearly in the floor debates in the two Houses where speakers insisted “This is who we are!”

Those involved in pastoral care know that when a relationship is deeply frayed when one or other party insists “this is who I am” the outcome will be disastrous. The same will be the case with D025, both inside the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

D025 is the proud assertion of a church of self-authentication and radical autonomy.

It is a particularly ugly sight.

Source: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/24426/

Covenant, Consequence and Intent: A Second Exchange with Father Jim Stockton

2009-05-18T13:46:00.005-04:00

Another discussion that began with a House of Bishops and Deputies posting by Father Stockton of Church of the Resurrection, Austin, Texas. Father Stockton gave his permission for these to appear.

The original post:

Still no reason for a covenant -

He has made himself abundantly clear: the Archbishop of Canterbury is intent on imposing a covenant upon the Churches of the Anglican Communion. One can only wonder why he is intent on this end, for he has offered no real purpose for it. The sum of all his apologetic is that a covenant is an end that justifies itself. He fails to offer a genuine and theological purpose for it. On the one hand he notes that the Churches do function and serve in effective partnership with one another. On the other hand, he implies that without a covenant the Churches will not be able to continue to do so. His reliance upon a false and implied logic exemplifies a plain truth of the matter: neither he nor anyone one has yet offered a serious reason for pursuing a covenant. Many have offered justifications for the concept of covenant per se, but no one has offered anything that approaches a compelling inspiration for this particular effort. This effort was initiated bureaucratically through the Windsor Report (even though the Primates themselves meeting at Dromantine expressed reservations toward the pursuit of a covenant) which was itself a response to the use of parliamentary bullying and the socio-politcally 'conservative' propaganda by emerging-world primates who were then and are still being funded and manipulated by hard-right American money. The Archbishop of Canterbury, apparently possessed of a curious notion of his role as somehow the head of a single global Church, now seems intent upon imposing this view of his own rights and privileges upon the wider Anglican Communion.

His address to the recent meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council help exemplify his position. "The Anglican Communion has never called itself 'a church' in its official documents and yet as a world-wide communion -- not just a federation -- it has claimed for itself and claimed particularly in relation to its ecumenical partners that it is precisely more than just an assembly of local churches that happen to belong to the same bureaucracy. It has tried to behave in a church-like way: recognizing ordained ministry, sharing sacraments, sharing teaching and to a large extent doctrinal formulations and canonical positions" (ENS May 5, 2009). Reality contradicts the Archbishop's claims. In fact, the Churches do not belong to the same bureaucracy. In fact, the Churches have not "tried to behave in a church-like way;" unless such behavior equates to the efforts of autonomous and autocephalous Churches working cooperatively on specific goals and ministries. If this is the case, then where lies the need, much less the inspiration, for a covenant? Further, it is a fact that the Churches of the Communion do not universally 'recognize ordained ministry, share sacraments, teaching, and doctrinal formulations and canonical positions' any more than, for instance, the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church. An American clergy person's ordination does not automatically translate to ordination in the Church of England; he or she is not an English priest and is not allowed to function as such without application for license to do so. As is true respectively for each Church of the Communion, the Episcopal Church in the United States ordains clergy in and only for the Episcopal Church in the United States. Any exception to the rule is exactly that, an exception. It may be that the Church of England, or just the Archbishop of Canterbury, would prefer it to be otherwise. Nevertheless, we are not a Roman Catholic style Church. The reality simply is not what the Archbishop describes in his remarks. In fact, the reality of the Anglican Communion is ecumenical in the sense of the ancient Church. Rather than trying to change this to recreate the Anglican Communion in the image of jolly old England or of the Roman Church, we should be celebrating the distinctive gifts that this venerable model offers the world.

It is, I think, manipulative and unkind of the ABC to imply that Churches who may not look favorably upon a covenant are somehow lesser in their faithfulness to Christ-like fellowship and ministry. Yet he does exactly this when he declares "that provinces of the communion that choose to adopt the proposed Anglican covenant when it is made available will be showing that they 'want to create a more intense relationship between them -- a fuller and freer exchange between them.'" (ENS May 12, 2009). He goes on to suggest that once a covenant is in place, then more will need to be added: "Others," he says, "are not choosing that (i.e. "to adopt the proposed covenant") and the difficult question is: what is the best and most constructive relationship between those who do choose and those who do not" (ibid.). He declares that with some Churches signing on and "others" not doing so, what will be needed then is "some other kind of structure with 'groups of Anglicans associated for different purposes in different ways'" (ibid.). Again, he implies something that simply isn't true. He implies that if all the Churches, rather than only some, will adopt a covenant, then all will be well. I suggest, to the contrary, that whether the adoption is partial or wholly Communion-wide, any adoption of "the covenant." will require a new structure. And, I suggest, the ABC fully anticipates exactly this.

The ABC's remarks strike me as a thinly veiled warning to those Churches that would dare consider non-compliance. Despite the fact that the Church of England, bound by its status as a national institution, is well ahead of TEC on recognizing same-sex civil unions, the Archbishop of Canterbury is singling out the Episcopal Church in the United States as an example of those likely "others" among the Churches. He suggests that we of TEC had best not dare to set aside B033 of our last General Convention and return to observing our democratically established canons forbidding discrimination around sexual orientation in discernment of a person's fitness for and call to Holy Orders. He claims that "'holding back' on the episcopal ordination of people living in same-gender relationships 'ought not to be seen as a denial of the place of lesbian and gay people in the life of Christ's body'" (ENS May 12, 2009). This twisted logic may make some illusory rhetorical sense. However, it denies the reality that 'holding back' is an autocratic assignment of a particularly and amorally defined group of people to a remnant margin. The Archbishop of Canterbury is issuing an official call for the Churches of the Anglican Communion to continue participating in official discrimination, and he does so for reasons that are purely and pathetically political.

Yet, he suggests that, should TEC ignore his endorsement of the moratoria, we will be demonstrating our choice "not to go down the route of closer structural bonds and [of] that particular kind of mutual responsibility" (ibid.). Does anyone see anything 'mutually responsible' about the ABC's circumvention of the Anglican Consultative Council's decision not to forward to the Churches the proposed covenant? For my part, I pray that TEC chooses exactly as the ABC uncharitably characterizes he fears we will do. The Archbishop's description of 'some other kind of structure' sounds very much like the one that is now being demanded by the self-anointed 'Anglican Church in North America' and their boundary-crossing foreign prelates. It also sounds like one that the ABC will be able successfully to sell to the English Parliament and the Queen. With "the covenant" as the fulcrum and the Archbishop of Canterbury (and thus the English monarchy) firmly in place as authoritative head of this new covenanted global Church, the new structure will resonate well with hard-dying English imperialistic impulses.

Watch for it. The ABC will continue to impose upon our conversations about a covenant his own vocabulary, speaking more frequently and plainly of the Anglican Communion as a 'Church.' I anticipate that he will use these terms purposefully, hoping that, after having repeated them long enough and often enough, he will have succeeded in creating a new perception of reality, replacing fact with fantasy, reason with dogma. Undoubtedly, the Archbishop will continue to tell us that the Anglican Communion is not 'just a federation', not merely 'an assembly of local churches,' hoping to train us to assume that there is more and that we should want it. He will then begin more overtly defining for us what that 'more' is. My guess is that he will soon begin to imply, and then overtly to tell us in no uncertain terms, that we 'are' already and 'historically have been' a Church, albeit in a unique way. We will continue to hear and see the same from all those whose sense of institutional inadequacy drives them similarly to try create an Anglican imitation of Rome.

My prayer is that the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, along with some of our fellow "others" of the Anglican Communion Churches, will not succumb. Institutionally, structurally, no Church of the Anglican Communion is an appendage of a global "Anglican Church". However, organically, spiritually, ministerially, and missionally, we are already united one to another, and with no further covenant that the historic creeds of the Church catholic. We are united not by virtue of our Anglicanism, which is secondary at best, but by our kinship in Christ. TEC and our fellow "others" need to lead the way in listening past the increasingly shrill demand for a covenant. We need to reject the use of rhetoric that includes talk of 'The Covenant,' as though such a thing is already established. We will, I pray, not be misled to assume that it is an accomplished fact. It is not. There is no such thing as 'The Covenant.' It does not exist, and language that speaks of it as though it does is inaccurate at best and deceptive at worst. There is only 'a' proposed covenant. And it is a proposal without any express inspiration. It is a proposal awash in desperation. It is merely a proposed covenant. And I pray that we will reject it as a conceptual artifact.

My first response:

You and I have differed before as to the nature of the Communion relationship and neither of us are likely to change. I would ask, though, that you reconsider the use of the term "funded and manipulated by hard-right American money." In the first place, it is demeaning to the Global South episcopate, implying their inability to discern motive and willingness to surrender principle for filthy lucre. Even a scholar like Miranda Hassett (a fellow presbyter of yours and with progressive credentials) concluded from her researches that conservatives (North and South) adopted their theological stance out of principle (and took seriously their own moral deficiencies).

The simple truth is that there are many "money trails," both liberal (the "new" listening process) and conservative. Isn't a simpler explanation that people committed to their faith are willing to put their money where their mouth is? When one thinks of those cases of the 1990s when people stole from the national church for personal benefit, it seems sad that things like Anglican Relief and Development (which, at some level, sought to provide alternative sources of revenue to Global South provinces that had refused TEC help) should be viewed in the same way.

Naturally you reject the "theological dogmatism" of ACNA and the disloyal opposition (if I may so put it) but you don't have to reduce it merely to power politics. If you read any economic article that Kendall Harmon posts on T19, you'll immediately see a lot of economic liberals come out of the woodwork; it's unusual to find a corresponding rush of economic conservatives on liberal sites (though there must be some).

Can we not just assume that there are two visions and that both are assumed out of a conviction of what the Gospel message implies? That's certainly how I view the progressive approach. It has its own logic; I just can't reconcile some of the premises with my understanding of Scripture.

Father Stockton's response:

The hard-right sources of American money are fully open that they are after political power. I don't underestimate the several Primates of African Churches and those of the Southern Cone. I have every expectation that they, too, know exactly what they are doing. If it were about anything truly more than power politics, then, pray tell, why are they adamant about the property? I'm quite sure that people on all sides are using the Gospel to convince themselves of the righteousness of their nefarious behavior. I'm just not sure that God is convinced. I'm quite that I am not.

My second response:

As far as the property is concerned (and while I think it perfectly legal, it wouldn't be my approach) I think we've inherited the Episcopal predilection with institutionalism - that property is one of the defining marks of church. Perhaps it's naivete on my part, but I suspect that if there had been greater willingness to concede Anglican identity to those departing we would have seen less resort to the courts (even if that meant abandonment of property), but the Presiding Bishop apparently didn't want that.

How is it that conservative money (and behavior) is always "nefarious" and liberal money (and behavior) never is? Miranda was in a perfect position to write a stinging expose of the "conservative conspiracy" (and when I saw the title of her book I thought she had), but did not. There are liberal projects funded (I lived in the Diocese of Washington for some years, so my money ended up going to things of which I did not approve) and liberal coalitions organized for General Convention and yet these always seem to be described as "principled." Surely you're not saying that majority sentiment is the ultimate arbiter of moral correctness?

I suppose if one reaches the point of seeing things in Manichean terms, then any language used to describe the "other" is acceptable, but most people I know in Pittsburgh are much more "gray" (as are, I suspect, most of the Primates). Shouldn't our objective be to find a solution acceptable to all, even if it involves accommodating the failings of those with whom we differ?

Many people on HOBD seem to assume that now the renegades have withdrawn, there's no cost in exacting whatever penalties can be imposed. Some of my liberal acquaintances would beg to differ. At our last chapter meeting, Lynn Edwards - PEP chaplain and one of the Pittsburgh pioneers of care for those suffering from AIDS - remarked that God had put on his heart to write Bob Duncan a letter of encouragement, even though he was no longer his bishop. Lynn is an unsual presbyter but I thought he caught the sense of ambiguity in our diocesan communities remarkably well.

Father Stockton's response:

By 'acceptable to all' would you mean that the Church would have done better to have found a way to tolerate both slavery and abolition? Should the Church have found a way to accommodate both inclusion of women in clerical orders and clerical discrimination against women at the same time?

And if you'll take a moment to catch your breath, perhaps you'll notice that in my response, which you've copied below, my comment is that "I'm quite sure that people on all sides are using the Gospel to convince themselves of the righteousness of their nefarious behavior." It seems you missed it, so let me emphasize my point that the operative word is "all." However, I'm willing to accept your implication that it is "conservative money (and behavior) [that is] always 'nefarious.'"

In addition, simply 'conceding Anglican identity' is not how truth and fact works. By that logic, why don't we simply call ourselves Roman? Why use the term Anglican at all? But the fact of distinction, and the nature of the particular distinction do in fact matter. Simply conceding that someone is what they wish to claim that they are, does not make it so; not to mention the fact that this approach is equivalent to delusional. What does real identity matter as long as we can all just claim to be what we wish? The Church as an institution AND as an organic community bears responsibility to those who have given to it in the past, those who give to it now, and those who may give to it in the future. People gave their donations of time and money to the Episcopal Church. Yes, they gave in large part to particular congregations, but they were congregations of the Episcopal Church, not of the Lutheran Church or some invented church yet to be named. Those people are owed faithful fiduciary practice by we who follow, we who have built upon and enjoyed the fruits of their giving. And if we now blithely give away Church property to the group that whines the loudest, dare we hope, much less expect, people to give to the Church now? Why would they? They would have glaring evidence before them of our unwillingness to treat their giving responsibly, and in accord with our own canons.

In conclusion, I note that it was he self-proclaimed 'conservatives' who enjoyed dominant influence when Gentiles were told by the infant Church that they were second-class members of God's Kingdom. The 'conservatives' in the Episcopal Church held dominance when slavery was in fact tolerated (remember: it was the Methodist Church, not the Episcopal, who came out during the Civil War and declared itself official opposed to slavery), when bigotry against black Americans was not only tolerated but also part official policy, when women who dared claim that God was calling them to Holy Orders were ridiculed into silence and departure, when people who had been divorced were rendered unworthy of full access to the sacraments, and until a few decades ago, when fags and queers were officially condemned. Certainly you are able to set forward specific examples of incidents of abuses of power by so-called 'liberals.' I challenge you to find an historic thread through the entire history of the Church that can be assigned to 'liberalism' and has caused the massive harm, in Christ's Name no less, that 'conservatism' has inflicted. You'll understand, perhaps, why I'm skeptical now of 'conservatives' cries of injury and offense just because they no longer get to dictate according to their self-serving prejudices.

Gray is fine, but it is only recognizable as such, because the black and white to which it is compared still exist. I don't think truth is measured by popularity. Jesus asked people to make a choice and follow him at a call. I give God thanks the he didn't waste his time trying to find a alternative that was 'acceptable to all,' even though those 'all' in his day believed themselves faithful to God.

My third response:

We could, of course, continue these exchanges indefinitely without convincing the other, so we'll have to draw a line at some point. However, since you raise a couple of interesting issues.

I did not mean by "acceptable to all" (a phrase I don't think I used) to refer to theological positions held, but rather an effort to find a means to recognize incompatibility and deal with it. With all due respect, you know that analogies with slavery and female ordination miss the point. After all, the Episcopal antislavery movement was birthed among those pesky moralizing Evangelicals who were determined to be countercultural. As to women's ordination, again about half the renewal movement (including those contrarian Pittsburghers) are on board with it.

The presenting issue - warped and distorted by all the wrangling - reflects a debate not confined to proof texts but embracing an understanding of sexuality and a theology of the body within the context of heterosexual marriage and procreation and most of the people I'm acquainted with believe that. Of course, there are frequent failures (mine included) but there is a sincere desire to try to practice what we preach.

I note that people like Louie Crewe have questioned whether most heterosexual conservatives actually lived up to their principles before they were married. Well I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I was married five years ago at the age of 34 and I was a virgin then. I don't hold this up as a great virtue (perhaps it was just lack of opportunity) but I certainly had to exercise restraint on occasion while engaged. That by the way.

The real issue is that of two widely diverging understandings of what is involved, whose proponents are much more consistent than the institutionalists in the middle. And, ultimately, one must be right and one must be wrong. The trouble is that there seems to be no easy way to cut the Gordian knot. If conservatives are right in their reading, then to accuse them of a lack of compassion misses the mark; if liberals are right, then to deny sacramental access (Marriage not the Eucharist) is erroneous.

If it is wrong to deny the local majority for innovation, it is equally wrong to deny the majority view across the Anglican Communion and the Church Catholic (at least I so believe). But even if you don't share that view, there is still an argument for a negotiated settlement in that there are many people - even perhaps in Fort Worth - who currently have friendships across the theological divide that will be poisoned and that could have consequences down the road (especially if your argument ultimately carries the day beyond North America). We can't turn back the clock but only deal with the consequences as best we may. The theological stances must remain, but we have it in our power to stop the legal juggernaut. Remember the "Barnburner" sobriquet applied to the extreme political abolitionists - they wanted to burn down the barn to get rid of the rats. Can't you see that unfolding in the here and now?

I did note your phrase about using the Gospel, but to me that was way removed from any sense of mutual recognition; more a sense of progressives "applying" the Gospel and conservatives "using" it as justification. My point was that both sides are using it consistently and in as principled a fashion as they can (with some exceptions on both sides). That was not what I inferred from your communication.

As far as fiduciary duty is concerned, what does that mean? Of course we honor the Church Expectant, but we also recognize that the church has evolved and grown over time (liberals even more than conservatives). So our fidelity is simply to the fact that they gave money to a body carrying the same name (actually, of course, not the same, since most gave to the Protestant Episcopal Church). Historic Anglo Catholic and Evangelical identities have vanished from those churches in which they were first manifested, while southern parishes, whose former members believed devoutly in social and religious segregation, now campaign for civil rights, and parishes that opposed the ordination of women to the presbyterate now have female incumbents. Most of the dead would never have given money to the Episcopal Church as currently constituted. That's fine, things change, but it's hardly an argument for keeping the property merely to comply with the wishes of the dead.

Why should one give in to the "most shrill" voices at this time? Because this time, unlike any other, there are facts on the ground - in the US and abroad - that promise a substantive jurisdiction in the Americas with or without Episcopal consent and because the issue under debate is fundamental - and acknowledged by liberal and conservative alike to be so. This wasn't true for the REC (most Evangelicals had either left prior to the rupture or chose to stay - the best analogy would be with AMIA).

You ask whether liberalism or conservatism has done more damage. Surely that in itself is a loaded question, predicated on one's theological perspective? Or, to put it another way, it depends on who is "right" in a transcendent sense.

I've always had a fondness for the Social Gospelers (countercultural to a man) and I can applaud those who led the civil rights protests (though I think John Allin got a raw deal). I do think Pike and Spong did great damage to doctrinal teaching of the church, but what I resent most is less their speculation than the Episcopal Church's surrender to prevailing cultural mores both on divorce (and conservatives have to answer for that too) and on abortion. As the author of a recent history of this diocese, I can tell you that what jumpstarted the renewal movement here were moves at several conventions during the 1970s to take a more pro-abortion stance. It is interesting that some of the more prominent advocates of same-sex inclusion (in its broadest sense) are also promoters of pro-choice perspectives. It does point to a rather selective view of human dignity where the rights of the most vulnerable are neglected (and yes, I know the counter-arguments).

If your position is that many conservatives are judgmental, self-righteous and frequently unwilling to dialogue, I would answer that this may well be true. The problem is that (a) the same holds good for many liberals and (b) when people talk of deeply held convictions they are apt to "sound" that way to the unconvinced. No doubt you resent your former bishop far more than Lynn Edwards resents Bob Duncan (and perhaps you have reason), but then I think of Andrew Smith's "raid" on St. John's, Bristol, several years ago and suspect that there are also conservatives with good cause to resent (or worse). History is not going to deal kindly with this period of our common life and how much better a legacy it would be if people like me could document a resolution that conceded nothing in essentials but recognized the good faith of all parties. None of us would be the poorer for that.

Father Stockton's response:

You are, I think quite right, that we are not to convince one another to change our respective opinions on inclusion of gay people and gay couples in the life and ministry of the Church. For instance, I believe that analogies with slavery and "female ordination"(?) are exactly to the point. With respect, to you and to Louis Crewe, whether or not you, he, or gay or straight persons anywhere at anytime have lived up to vows of fidelity matters not at all to the moral and spiritual right or wrong of a particular view. Just because someone does or doesn't keep his of her marriage vows, this has nothing to do with whether or not the concept of said vows is morally good and spiritually responsive to God. If practice trumps ideals, then let's quite prescribing behavior and just describe instead. I think Louie's point is that the self-proclaimed 'conservatives' (what they really are is for God to discern) are naming gay people and lesbians as intrinsically immoral, and that they would do well to challenge their own immorality before levying that charge against someone else. But again, practices hypocrisy does not nullify the verity or morality of a position per se.

As for your argument about fiduciary responsibility, let's suppose we extend that argument beyond merely TEC. By you logic, we should now turn over all property of the Church of England to the citizenry at large for their use as they determine, since the absence of most of Britain from Church life indicates clearly that the C of E is largely irrelevant in their lives. Now let's apply this logic to the Roman Church. The institutional Church holds title to the properties. The Church isn't simply invention our of thin air its duty to go to court and retain property that it owns. What's the mystery in this? If we want to go with squatters' rights are regards material property, we'd better be careful, since we'll be surrender the protection that the courts offer us in keeping what belongs to us. There are in place already, via civil law, processes for the selling of real estate. Dioceses and the Church as a whole need to pay attention to these. If a bishop decides that it would be prudent to sell a piece of property to a dissenting congregation, then let that bishop consult with the title-holder, the TEC holding a determinative share of that title, and with the proposed purchasers. I'd suggest also that the property be put up on the open market, as well, in order to secure a fair price. However, cries of injustice from those who wish to leave TEC but take TEC's property with them have no grounds in reality. One can sympathize with their emotional grief or resentment, but ignorance of the canons is no excuse for them to claim property that does not belong to them. Once donations are made to the Church, they belong to the Church. If people are doubtful about that, then they need to offer loans instead of gifts, and then not take the take credit for their donations.

As I did earlier, I do here again, concede that you can always find example of misuse of power and authority by so-called 'liberals.' You have done so again. However, I note that you offer no counterpoint to my proposition that the propagation of bigotry and groundless discriminations that pepper world and Church history stem from self-identified 'conservative' defenders of the faith. Yes, rejection of the Gentiles by the early Church, the horrors of the Inquisition, slavery, racial segregation, ordination of clergy who are women, and now official discrimination against gay people and anyone else whose manner of life might offend someone else are all examples of the influence of misuse of power by 'conservatives.' You will, perhaps, recall, that I've also challenged the self-serving hypocrisy of those calling themselves 'liberals' who are joining the call for waiting, for validating the bigotry of the Communion's bigots by TEC's participation in "the Covenant." These are the folks who themselves enjoy a place at the table, but somehow persuade themselves that it is conscionable to turn to those forced to remain outside and tell them, 'Hey, I'm on your side.' However, as loathsome a creature as he or she may be, the well-intentioned arm-chair liberal is merely a passive enabler of the aggressive bigotries of 'conservative,' bigotries that have plagued civilized societies and the Church through history.

I encourage you to re-read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essay 'Why We Can't Wait.' He, like Ghandi before him, like Oscar Romero after him, understood that bigotry harms all, the bigot as much as the object of the bigotry. Knowing this, I find it unconscionable to label as Christian a position, like that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, that urges continued moratoria on offering the option of blessing of same-sex and on denying the constitutional consideration of someone for election to serve as bishop simply because that person's 'manner of life' may, possibly, perhaps, could, be offensive to someone overseas in another Church. Every major argument, i.e. tradition, scripture, historical precedent, social norm, and majority opinion, being offered now to justify continued bigotry and prejudice against gay people has been used formerly to justify similar discrimination against people of color, people of lower social status, enslaved persons, and people who are women. Aside from adjustments of the specific examples offered to suit the specific prejudice being defended, I suggest that there is very little you can do to deny that this is true.

Finally, I believe that, if you go back and re-read your previous message, you'll find that you mentioned seeking a resolution to the discord that is 'acceptable to all.' My response is intended to encourage you and others recognize that insofar as both sides, i.e. the Church and the departers, are claiming ownership physical property there is no solution that is acceptable to all. One will win this one, and one will lose. This is as it should be when it comes to intransigence born of and fueled by bigotry, don't' you think? It's past time for TEC to grow up and grow a conscience.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2009-05-04T20:32:00.006-04:00

I got this in a paper from one of my religious history students describing one of the consequences of Billy Graham's English crusades of the 1950s (I trust the sage of Grove Farm will appreciate it).

"John Guest was an Anglican who converted to Christianity."

Timely Words from Bishop Mark Lawrence

2009-04-08T22:08:00.002-04:00

No matter how pressured we feel by the events around us, (and they are there to be sure—as individual priests and deacons, as a Church, as a diocese—within and without—and in each of our parishes); no matter how buffeted we have been by our calling—the weariness of our ministry; the hours of silent toil; those weeks when the Word seems silent; those Saturday nights when sermon work and study have yielded what seems like only a thin broth (we’ve all been there), and you plead with a seemingly cold heaven for a word to give to your people; when the faithful in your flock seem to have no patience with solid food and itchy ears for whatever is new; when you are heartsick from your own sin; parched and dry throated in your own personal spiritual desert—it is then you dare not forget that this ministry is given to you by the mercy of God. That is, your calling is not only rooted in the mercy of God, it has been given to you as God’s mercy—to you. And remember this: it is not only given to us who are ordained; it is the case for all who have been called into relationship with Jesus Christ—who have come to know his saving grace—the forgiveness of sins. We all have this ministry by the mercy of God. It is only the wonder of this mercy that can sustain us when we are tempted to neglect our duty, or grow weary in our work.

Certainly if you are an academic you can preach powerfully with an academic bent. If you are a poet you can preach with a poetic grace. God will honor what he has made. But you cannot seek to create a favorable opinion of yourself and at the same time preach the gospel. To be truthful with God’s word is to let the truth of Jesus Christ—his cross, his resurrection, his Lordship—take center stage. You see, we each face a decision. We can put ourselves on the center stage of our ministry and we will bring people to ourselves, perhaps for a season; or we can put Jesus Christ on the center stage of ministry and bring people to him for all eternity. But we cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive. We know well enough self will feed neither ourselves nor those we are called to serve.

Read it all at http://www.dioceseofsc.org/mt/archives/000402.html

Another Year, Another Chrism Mass

2009-04-06T23:00:00.004-04:00

A year ago, I reported on the "Last Chrism Mass" in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Of course, it was not exactly the last. This year, Trinity Cathedral - again in the spirit of our resolution - is hosting two Chrism Masses, one for the continuing Episcopal Diocese (today) and one for the realigned Episcopal Diocese (tomorrow).

Since I teach a class at Duquesne University on Tuesday mornings, I am not able to be present tomorrow, but I put in an appearance today. As near as I could judge there were around 35 priests and Bishop Robert Johnson in attendance. To my surprise, the laity present (all three of us) were invited to present the clergy to the bishop, prior to the renewal of vows, a pleasing touch in my humble opinion. (It's a nice point whether I actually should have have been doing the presenting, since I'm not yet clear to which body I belong, but then nor does anyone else at Trinity, so I figure it's excusable).

Bishop Johnson preached an irreproachable sermon, alluding to those presbyters from whom members of this body were now sadly separated. When he went on to talk of rebuilding the diocese (which obviously has to be done) I did feel he went a little over the top in making a comparison with St. Francis, but perhaps he merely meant to emphasize the magnitude of the task ahead. He spoke of the feelings of wonderment that most must feel at being a priest in this place at this time (he did not anticipate being in Pittsburgh a year ago, he admitted) and urged the clergy not to forget their calling in the passing anguish of the moment.

Among those present were many of the communion conservative clergy (some of whom I know personally and others by repute) to whom I feel theologically closest. It is nonsense, at least in this place, to see only sheep in one jurisdiction and goats in another. While I can often appreciate the logic of the federal conservative arguments, this doesn't translate for me into a belief that only in ACNA can one be faithful. At today's Mass there were present those who have experienced the agony of Gethsemane every day since realignment. May it be that those at tomorrow's gathering will be equally appreciative of what has been lost as well as what has been gained.

Pittsburgh's Diocesan History Now Available

2009-02-04T12:30:00.008-05:00

The history of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh through the General Convention of 2006 is now available for purchase from Wipf & Stock.

ENDORSEMENTS

Called Out of Darkness Into Marvelous Light is a scholarly, accessible and timely history of one of the most important forces in the present Reformation of Anglicanism and, in turn, of contemporary Western Christianity. Dr. Bonner examines the factors contributing to the realization of Dr Sam Shoemaker’s vision (that someday Pittsburgh would be “as famous for God as for Steel”) in the context of 250 years of Anglican witness in Western Pennsylvania. This book has relevance far beyond the ministry and mission of the particular Christian community it chronicles.

The Rt. Revd. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh; Archbishop-Designate of the Anglican Church in North America.

Jeremy Bonner presents a detailed, thoughtful, and even-handed account of the history of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, now central to struggles over Anglican identity and authority. Bonner’s work combines the satisfying weight of local history with the thought-provoking breadth of national and global implications. This is a fascinating and rewarding read for those seeking to understand the history of the “culture wars” within the Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Dr. Miranda K. Hassett, author of Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their Anglican Allies Are Reshaping Anglicanism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

In recent years when I have mentioned that I am from the Diocese of Pittsburgh some have responded by giving me a hug while others have (literally!) turned their backs and walked away. What has made even the mention of this diocese so polarizing? Jeremy Bonner’s detailed but readable study of the 250-year history of Anglicanism in western Pennsylvania sheds light on this surprisingly important epicenter in the modern story of Christianity in America and Anglicanism worldwide. Most local histories are relevant and interesting to those who call that place home. This volume should be much more widely read because this particular local place has become such a focal point both for conflict and for renewal.

Grant LeMarquand, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Mission, Trinity (Episcopal) School for Ministry.

Becoming Icons: Trinity Cathedral’s Search for Graced Space

2009-01-17T16:42:00.004-05:00

Today, members of the chapter of Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh, met for their annual retreat, seeking to discern the new fields of mission to which their Lord was calling them. No great novelty, except for the fact that attendees included elected representatives of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Southern Cone) and the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America and – seated next to one another – Bishop Robert Duncan of the Province of the Southern Cone and Assisting Bishop Robert Johnson of the Episcopal Church. Back in June, when we first passed our now infamous resolution pledging continued participation in both prospective Anglican entities, few would have imagined such a gathering, yet here, in the shadow of renewed legal rumblings in Pittsburgh, Trinity Cathedral continues her mission as mother to, as Bishop Duncan put it, “two children it both wants to prosper.”

For those outside Pittsburgh, our story may require elaboration. In the last decade we have lived a precarious existence, groping for identity as our congregation hemorrhaged members and maintenance costs steadily increased. Fewer and fewer people have been willing to navigate the confusing byways of Pittsburgh’s business district to join us in worship, while the pastoral needs of the local homeless population have taken their toll on the small body of parishioners with time to contribute to outreach. Maintenance-to-mission may have been the slogan of the Duncan episcopate, but it is been hard to get beyond maintenance when one has a structure of our size with which to contend. Now, as the recession slashes our endowment to the edge of fiscal viability, we are obliged to contemplate a dramatic change in vision.

In this context, it is excusable for outsiders to read our resolution as simply an effort to remain a viable congregation, while staying out of the present legal fray. Such is not out intent. Composed as we are of a blend of institutional liberals and moderates, communion conservatives and a few federal conservatives, we recognize that our resolution can be effective only with a degree of self-discipline. We are not Laodiceans. Our vision – “To Be a Missionary Cathedral Building Up a Missionary People of God” – embodies a commitment to the continued need for relationship between those recently parted by realignment. Both new ecclesiastical entities contain within them the DNA of the former Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Looking toward the future, we must still account for our past. The commitments to “to forgive rather than retaliate” and “to heal hurts rather than nurse grudges” are not legalistic boilerplate, but an attempt to live into the ambiguities of our recent division.

We emerged from our retreat with the belief that we have the potential to promote our vision, even if the prevailing climate would have us act otherwise. Meditating on Ephesians 2: 11-22, we came to fresh understanding of the reconciling work of Christ on the Cross. We saw once more the ability of Jesus to lessen the pain even of the hurts that have recently been inflicted and endured in this part of Pennsylvania. Again and again, we heard from representatives of the realigned and reorganized dioceses, talk of what could still be shared, of ways in which we might still be in relationship with one another.

Our first acknowledged task is to define our identity as a congregation, for we have a need to grow and be fruitful and without vision we most definitely will perish. We have to learn to suit our very limited resources to what is achievable, to use the spiritual gifts of our congregation to best advantage, and to identify those constituencies whom we are best placed to serve. All of this is, of course, the standard work of parish profiling, yet beyond those fundamentals lies a deeper and more challenging objective: to model Christ in such a fashion that non-Anglican Pittsburghers will no longer think of us as the denomination that’s always in legal battles and that the Anglican community will have cause to downplay the adversarial nature of the conflict.

For some – perhaps for many – what we are seeking to do may seem at best fruitless and at worst harmful, and yet there is no other congregation with the institutional history to attempt it. We are the mother church that John Henry Hopkins fostered and from which Alfred Arundel sought to project a vision of pastoral care to those who would never have considered becoming Episcopalians. We have fought with bishops and with each other and yet have endured though the many twists and turns of Anglicanism in Pittsburgh. In 2008, the cleaning of our exterior as part of the diocesan anniversary celebration saw Trinity Cathedral emerge from the blackened deposits that had accumulated in the course of a century of industrial development, to reveal the almost golden sheen that it enjoyed at its erection. As an icon for our soon-to-be-released diocesan history – “Called Out of Darkness Into Marvelous Light – it reflects the hopes of those who seek a deeper reconciliation than a mere equitable division of assets (not that this would necessarily be a bad thing). Ultimately, however, we seek only to live out the vision to which we believe we have been called, always aware that “Our Help is in the Name of the Lord, who Hath made Heaven and Earth.”

A Historical Response to Jim Stockton

2009-01-03T11:51:00.006-05:00

My first post of 2009 is a response to a posting by Father Jim Stockton of Church of the Resurrection in Austin, Texas on the House of Bishops and Deputies discussion list (HOBD) on the dangers of endorsing the proposed Anglican Covenant. Subscribers to HOBD are asked not to publish postings without the permission of the author, but readers can still, I hope, get a sense of what is in dispute.

Update: Father Stockton has posted his original article in the comments section.

While the issues that Father Stockton raises are, for the most part, practical and theological, and, as such, not a part of my remit, I would like to take issue with some of his historical assertions.

One of the things that I, as a historian, find a little frustrating about the progressive position are the simultaneous assertions that Anglicanism represents as much an organic as a legalistic version of catholicity – which I think is true – and that because there are few, if any, examples of formal transnational structures, this is implicit proof that no one down the ages ever desired or anticipated them. If Anglican structures have historically been informal, undocumented and organic then there will inevitably be no paper trail, but that proves little about how people have anticipated the future.

Father Stockton asserts that historically there was never an intention to create a Communion. If he means there was never a proposal to create a curial structure, then I suppose he is right, but why is it that it was the American and Canadian bishops who pressed most strongly for Lambeth 1, at least in part to address the questions arising over Bishop Colenso? He further states that the American church never sought to sustain a relationship with the Church of England. Here, I believe he is wrong. The Episcopal Church in the early national period did have to live down its reputation for residual Toryism and disloyalty to the Republic and Bishop Hobart’s approach, as Robert Mullin has demonstrated so well, was designed to emphasize American Anglicanism’s detachment from statist projects, but I have read little that suggests that the Church, at least after 1815, had any other reason to downplay its English credentials.

The evidence from Pittsburgh is rather that the Episcopal Church saw itself as midwife to new immigrants from the British Isles. Our first bishop, John Kerfoot, was instrumental in establishing the notion of letters of transfer to be presented by English immigrants to Episcopal rectors on arrival in the United States. While there certainly are statements that imply a purely advisory role for the Lambeth Conference there are equally existential statements – by bishops and others – that seek to dispel the notion that members of the Episcopal Church belong solely to an American denomination. One might just as well say that any American reserve stemmed from the fact that a largely High Church body – especially after 1873 – viewed with some disquiet efforts to propitiate English Evangelicals, including such legislative instruments as the Public Worship Regulation Act.

I have no way of knowing what Father Stockton would consider “deep and abiding affection,” yet there would seem to be a fairly constant record of clergy exchanges and a strong sense of “Britishness” within the American Church that antedated the Second World War. Clearly this did not amount to a view of the archbishop of Canterbury as even a titular pope, but I think it implied something more than just a common historic point of departure. Anglo Catholics have always seemed good at sustaining transatlantic connections, and the Broad Church had the Social Gospel to share (Charles Gore was read on both sides of the Atlantic).

When Evangelicals started reconnecting in the 1950s and 1960s – John Stott’s visits to America and Billy Graham’s English tour were both part of the same phenomenon – they were merely doing what previous generations of American Anglicans had done. Where they broke with the past was in being more pan-Anglican than their nineteenth century forbears, most of whom had preferred to think in terms of a pan-Protestant alliance extending across the denominations. That is where the real difference between then and now is to be found. Contemporary Evangelicalism may be dismissed by its critics as outside the Anglican mainstream, but it is being shaped much more within an ‘Anglican’ world view than it was 150 years ago. Again, people may not like the Anglican Church in North America, but it is a very different entity than was the Reformed Episcopal Church when it was first formed.

Father Stockton may well be right, however, in his belief that voluntary federations are now inevitable. Those now fighting for a Covenant may well be seeking to preserve a catholicity that is unsustainable. But asserting that a high view of bishops and primates can be seen only as making the former “dictatorial headmasters of an infantilized laity,” also does less than justice to bishops of the past who would certainly not have understood their role solely as that of chief executive officer of their diocese. If apostolic succession is to have any meaning, surely it implies an episcopal charism in relation to matters of doctrine? I would strongly question whether even the most avid of nineteenth century proponents of lay democracy desired to hobble the authority of bishops to pronounce on matters of theological significance.

“The Church of England,” says Father Stockton, “never had a covenant. The Episcopal Church purposely has never had a covenant.” It might be more true to say that neither ever had a confession, but to insist that Episcopalians (and members of the Church of England) never thought in covenantal terms seems much more of a stretch. It would be interesting if other dioceses would take up the question from a historical perspective so that we might gain a deeper understanding of just what it was that American Anglicans believed in times past. It is most unprofitable for either side to project onto the Church Expectant a vision derived from present-day events.

The Work Goes On, The Cause Endures: Diocese of Pittsburgh (Southern Cone) Convention, November 7, 2008

2008-11-07T20:52:00.004-05:00

With apologies to Teddy Kennedy almost thirty years ago, the second day of the special convention convened today to reelect Robert William Duncan as Bishop of Pittsburgh. "We've all been waiting so long," declared Christopher Leighton, rector of St. Paul's, Darien (Connecticut), a member of Trinity School for Ministry's first graduating class, who headed one of three visiting delegations from parishes outside Pittsburgh, and most of those present undoubtedly agreed.

Convention delegates agreed unanimously to make their selection by paper ballot. Prior to reading aloud the relevant statutes, the Chancellor quipped that it had been suggested "that we read this responsively by whole verse." Gladys Hunt Mason of St. Stephen's, McKeesport (a parish that has opted not to realign) presented the report of the nominating committee, which "unanimously and with great joy" recommended Bob Duncan for the position. There being no nominations from the floor, the Veni Creator Spiritus was sung and the ballot cast. It was announced that Bob Duncan had received 78 of 79 clerical ballots (one was invalid) and 100 of 100 lay ballots - blessed unanimity! Bishop Scriven read aloud a letter from Primate Gregory Venables commending the election as a "positive and significant step in the advance of the Gospel." Did the bishop-elect accept his election? Standing Committee President David Wilson inquired. "I have a few things to say," the bishop-elect replied.

He did indeed. After thanks to the Standing Committee for the 50 days (take note) that they had stood guard in his absence and to the diocesan staff, +Bob brought his wife Nara up on stage and commended her to our prayers. Given the Bob Duncan buttons that had made an appearance after his deposition, he suggested an updated version inscribed "He's Back!"

He spoke of the past, most especially of John Kerfoot, the first bishop of Pittsburgh who strove for reconciliation at the first post-Civil War General Convention, but also of the future. There is no time to wait to recover from recent traumas, he insisted, but rather we must get on with the mission. At the 1995 convention that elected him bishop, so many spoke of the extraordinary sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit, even when the diocese had been terribly divided. "We're not divided any more . . . we're free and without excuse not to do mission. Will you join me in the mission? Are you willing to do it?" He invited all those willing so to commit to rise. When all did, he observed quietly: "Then I consent."

There followed presentations both from the new parishes admitted in October and from some of the outside observers. The latter included Anglicans from Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia (Christ Church, Savannah), New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia as well a our "sister congregation" at Christ Church, Grove Farm. What we're doing, the Bishop went on, carries a cost, as witness the Pittsburgh priest recently expelled from Connecticut for voting in favor of realignment, but it served as a beacon for Christians throughout the world. Indeed, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington (the former Catholic Bishop of Pittsburgh) had called him just before the convention to let Duncan know he would be praying for him.

Jenni Bartling, overseer of new church plants, spoke of how she had felt "postpartum blues" on behalf of her new congregations who had received only cursory attention in October. The four new congregations and three other plants over the past seven years testified that "moving forward in mission" was not empty rhetoric in Pittsburgh and the congregational leaders echoed her sentiments. From Seeds of Hope, Bloomfield a reminder that if you want families and children in your congregations you need to do child and youth ministry. From Grace Anglican, Slippery Rock, an emphasis on the need for constant prayer, which could turn a community of eight into a congregation of 150, most of them tithing and 40 percent organized in cell groups, and ten people considering ordination (five of them since the realignment vote). From Charis 247, Coraopolis, a reminder of the need to build community relationships (Practice, Pray and Partner). Finally, from Somerset Anglican Fellowship - this I really liked - a reminder that it is possible to leave everything except the people and still grow. "Getting rid of the building has turned out to be a blessing in our case," declared their spokesman and they still wish the 20 percent of the congregation who opted to remain with TEC well and continue to pray for their spiritual health and well-being.

And then the outsiders. Christopher Leighton from St. Paul's, Darien, where the renewal movement had some of its earliest beginnings, noted that his congregation was currently engaged in planting two new Anglican congregations and thanked his former diocese for its leadership. Art Ward from St. Bartholomew's, Tonawanda, New York, spoke from the perspective of a congregation who chose to leave everything behind and noted the "gracious" behavior of their reappraising bishop on the issue. This had been the year to choose, he said, and if staying was not an option, neither was litigation. Finally David Drake of Holy Trinity, Raleigh, North Carolina: "People who are wounded can still preach the Gospel . . . I had never seen people come to Christ in a church before."

Given the asides that had been dropped throughout these presentations, Bishop Duncan at one point took the stand to address the question of a new province. It was "very near" he said, and recognition might come as early as December. Certainly, it is hoped that a draft constitution will be presented at the December meeting of the Common Cause Partnership. Proceedings were closed with Geoff Chapman introducing a Sense of the House resolution that parishes and diocesan bodies prayerfully consider the Jerusalem Declaration as a standard of faith to be adopted at the next regular diocesan convention, should delegates so approve. On that note convention was adjourned with delegates admonished to sign the testimonials on Bishop Duncan's behalf required by the Province of the Southern Cone.

Notable and Quotable

2008-10-24T14:16:00.001-04:00

There will come a time, God willing, when we can look back on these years with some measure of detachment and perspective, and consider ourselves wiser and maybe even holier for having lived through them. May that day be hastened.

Fr. Dan Martins

http://cariocaconfessions.blogspot.com/2008/10/naming-names-as-sadness-continues.html

Episcopal Dawn, Anglican Sunset: A Scholar's Reflections on Pittsburgh's Episcopal Experience

2008-10-21T17:59:00.022-04:00

This lecture was delivered at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Highland Park,
Pittsburgh, on October 17, 2008. My thanks to Bruce Robison and all those who attended.

“The effectiveness of the Episcopal Church is hampered by its own peculiar faults.” So spoke the Bishop of Pittsburgh not in 1985 or 1995, but in 1955. “In some quarters it bogs down in ritualistic trivialities and dissensions over unimportant issues. In other places, it becomes deflected from its goal by what amounts to an idolatry of scholarship and biblical criticism. Or again, the energies of the Episcopal Church become drained off by the belief that the future of the faith hinges upon new educational techniques and round table discussions. Or the Church may become so broad and liberal that it agrees with everybody and stands for nothing.” [1] Such sentiments, it would appear, have a longer lineage than one might imagine from casual perusal of today’s newspaper headlines.

It is both a privilege and a pleasure to address you tonight on the subject of 250 years of Anglican and Episcopal history and witness in this comparatively remote corner of western Pennsylvania. History is being made and never more so than in the past five years as global Anglicanism has reeled from crisis to crisis and relationships between provinces, dioceses and parishes have been irrevocably altered. A mere 20,000 Christians we may be, but we enjoy a notoriety out of all proportion to our numbers not just in the United States but across the world.

I would like to begin with an expression of thanks to Bruce Robison and the Adult Programs Committee of St. Andrew's Church. I know of no better place to address some of the present ambiguities of our situation – less than two weeks from the historic vote on realignment – than in a heterogeneous parish that has chosen to remain Episcopal. Next in importance – though first in my heart – my wife Jennifer, who, in addition to being the principal breadwinner, has had to endure four years of married life in which “churchy” affairs have formed a frequent topic of conversation (or perhaps monologue would express it better).

To the newest Bishop of the Province of the Southern Cone, I am grateful both that he considered it worthwhile to commission an official history and that, having done so, he refrained from seeking to exercise editorial judgments. In the course of two years, the only criticism Bob Duncan ever offered of my work was that he would like to see more attention given to the earliest phase of Anglican mission work, a criticism to which, I suspect, even the most ardent progressive would have little objection. As a scholar, I cannot begin to express my gratitude for the contribution of the diocesan archivist. Lynne Wohleber’s commitment to archival preservation, despite the limited resources with which she has been gifted, is worthy of high praise. Finally, every pledging member of the Diocese of Pittsburgh contributed to the stipend that I received between 2005 and 2007, an addition to our household income that was gratefully received. I hope that when our history is published in its entirety by Wipf and Stock next year, all will feel that this was money well spent.

For me, this project has had both a personal and a professional aspect. I have been a member of Trinity Cathedral – which recently adopted a unique approach to the problem of governance in a post-realignment era – have served on its Chapter and have been a delegate to Diocesan Convention. Even those aware of my Communion Conservative tendencies may well be inclined to assume that the diocesan history is a puff piece intended to validate the course pursued by Robert Duncan in his years as Bishop. While I esteem Bishop Duncan and share many of the concerns that he has expressed over the years, I have had occasion to differ with him on a number of issues and have continued to entertain reservations about the wisdom of realignment even as I have come to accept its historical inevitability.

Those who read my account of this year’s convention proceedings will have noted how I prefaced it with an extract from the last chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, in which the Elves, accompanied by Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf, depart into the West, leaving Sam to mourn their departure on the shores of Middle Earth. The scene amply captures own feelings as I watched the 2008 convention proceed to its denouement. If you prefer a Biblical analogy, consider that passage from Deuteronomy, where Moses, foremost among the Prophets, is denied entry to the Promised Land on account of his faithlessness at Meribah, even while the Lord permits him a vision of what will be.

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. [2]

In a touching pre-convention message, Joseph Martin, rector of Church of Our Savior in Glenshaw, wrote of how God had emancipated him from his fear of leaving the Episcopal Church, where all doubts boiled down to one essential question: “What will ministry life be like outside of the comfort, security, and status I had known all my life in the Episcopal Church? A question I had talked a good game about but never really faced seriously, and it was daunting.” [3] I have no doubt of the genuineness of his conviction and call, and yet I also do not doubt the convictions of those who find the view from the Anglican Pisgah as remote as did Moses. Since at least 2006 many diocesan leaders have preferred to stress the potential of new beginnings rather than lament what is, for them, already lost. Most of them, as Philip Wainwright, rector of St. Peter’s, Brentwood, so eloquently noted at St. Martin’s, Monroeville, have been engaged in an increasingly rearguard action for most of their adult life and perhaps welcome the opportunity finally to be free of constraint and conflict.

It is not the historian’s task to predict the future but rather to focus on what is passing. In some respects, the assertions frequently made in discussions of realignment over the past five years – that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has not changed its position, but stands where it has always stood – seem to me misleading. While the Episcopal Church in the past half-century moved a considerable distance from what church historian Robert Prichard has called the “Mere Christianity” consensus of the 1920s, [4] postwar Pittsburgh did not remain in ecclesiological stasis in the meantime. In a world where the definition of Anglican is increasingly contested – not least because Anglicanism no longer boasts a source of ultimate authority that commands universal respect – Pittsburgh Episcopalians have contributed their mite to redefining it. It is easy, too easy, merely to note the conflicts between the liberal minority in this diocese and their conservative counterparts, but ecclesiological conflict is not confined to simple liberal/conservative dichotomies.

If you doubt me, take Ohio River Boulevard to Sewickley, where you may stand in the lobby of St. Stephen’s Church and marvel at the throng that gathers to worship God in contemporary liturgy and praise music. Then follow the signs that point south and east to Charleroi, climb the steep Mon Valley hill and enter that shrine to working class Anglo Catholicism. Geoff Chapman and Bill Illgenfritz today, John Guest and Joseph Wittkofski forty years ago, practitioners of two traditions, both deeply rooted in the Anglican way and completely incompatible in terms of nineteenth century theology! And if we argue that both still express the essentials of the faith, then how do we account for those conservatives who today have chosen not to follow the path of realignment? Sometimes it is not the open opponent but “our companion, our guide and our own familiar friend,” [5] whose perceived betrayal hurts the most.

Renewal, at its best, begins with a consciousness of the Cross on which sinful thoughts and wills are crucified, a theology that stands in radical contrast with the liberal Protestant view famously – and critically – defined by the Neo-Orthodox theologian Richard Niebuhr that “a God without Wrath brought Man without Sin into a Kingdom without Judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” [6] Sinfulness remains a universal constant, as Bishop Duncan pointed out at this year’s Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem: “Over the last five decades,” he testified, “we have made more than our share of compromises when issues of Scriptural Truth were debated or challenged . . . Moreover, the witness of our personal lives has been scarcely better than the record of those whom we now forthrightly confront: divorce and remarriage, sexual sin, addiction, material possessions, careerism, children who wander far. Further to our shame, we have sometimes as orthodox battled one another – splintering into factions and sects, competing with one another for territory or adherents, even at times condemning one another – publicly proclaiming the Truth while privately operating for our own advantage. So it is not just the progressives who have allowed sin to masquerade as righteousness, but sometimes the orthodox as well that have disgraced, disrupted and divided the whole Anglican Communion.” [7]

For the last few years, I have been uniquely privileged as a historian, to write a work of historical context for an ecclesiastical organization undergoing the most profound transformation of its 142-year history. While I sat in a little side office and read issues of the diocesan newspaper from more than 100 years earlier, I could overhear conference calls with other Anglican Communion Network bishops (rarely the substance, unfortunately). From time to time the arch purveyor of diocesan propaganda – that is to say our esteemed director of communications – would intrude his head to inquire what tidbit of diocesan scandal from far-off days was currently preoccupying me. So I sat and recorded history, while all around history was being made. Four years ago, as my wife and I prepared to move to Pittsburgh, I knew next to nothing about the diocese (though I confess that Bob Duncan’s name was not entirely unknown to me). It has been an interesting journey.

What then of my title? Episcopal Dawn is, I hope, self-explanatory. With much of this region barely settled during the 1790s, the birth of the Episcopal Church and the emergence of an Anglican witness largely coincided. That pattern held in Pittsburgh for over 150 years: a strong Evangelical presence in the early nineteenth century gradually supplanted by a more Anglo Catholic outlook; an embrace of the Social Gospel – though hardly on the scale of some other urban dioceses – during the early twentieth century; and a period of contraction during the 1920s and 1930s.

Revival during the 1950s, while owing something to the positive demographic trends that sustained much postwar Episcopal resurgence, proved significantly different in Pittsburgh than in other parts of the Episcopal Church. The twin presences of Bishop Austin Pardue and Sam Shoemaker fostered the cultivation of a prayer-centered Anglican culture considerably more introspective and personally transforming than the more mainstream spiritual nostrums of Norman Vincent Peale. The notion of a local witness intended to convert the broader culture was thus birthed in Pittsburgh twenty years before the diocese had begun to gain its present notoriety in religious circles as a center of the parachurch movement. “It is encouraging,” remarked Bishop Pardue in 1966, “to see how many new and expanded ministries have developed within the Diocese. They are not Diocesan initiatives and for them the Diocese has no financial responsibility. . . . Yet, they are fostered by our clergy and lay people and by individual parishes and missions of zeal and vision.” [8]

The contributions of undertakings as diverse as the Pittsburgh Experiment, Trinity School for Ministry, the South American Missionary Society, Anglicans for Life and Rock the World Youth Alliance should not blind us to the realities inherent in this form of spiritual identity. What developed in Pittsburgh during the 1970s and 1980s was a profoundly different understanding of “being church” from that found in most Episcopal dioceses. Its strengths were and are undeniable. It meets the unchurched where they are and focuses on bringing them into right relationship with their Lord and Savior. It confronts secular culture, refusing to make concessions on matters of doctrine merely to conciliate the secularist. Finally, it undercuts the fatal tendency of institutional Protestantism to descend into bureaucratic obscurantism by keeping its organization simple and suiting its structures to the task at hand.

Such discipleship is of a high order and yet through it runs potential contradictions, the same that drove the Reformed Episcopalians into schism. Modern Evangelicalism operates within the context of a wider conservative American Protestantism. Sometimes the suggestion that “they’re not really Anglicans” can be understood as a coded attempt to remove conservative voices from the debate, but the present discussion of the “two integrities” on female ordination inherent in the realigning movement testifies to enduring tensions. “People have a deep need to express their faith in ways that are culturally relevant to them,” observed one Evangelical priest in 1992, “we don’t really need pipe organs and medieval dress and archaic language and music.” [9] Taken at face value, such observations reflect an obliviousness to the fact that an attachment to the “archaic” can be its own form of religious counter-culture, if it is a truly lived experience and not merely a liturgical performance.

Such pronouncements could be heard as early as the 1970s. The future Bishop of Central Florida, John Howe, then a fiery Pittsburgh-based Evangelical, caused some alarm in 1973 with his denunciations of established Episcopalianism. “Our churches,” he observed, “are ‘filled’ with baptized, confirmed, committee-serving, Sunday School-teaching, bill-paying, loyal Episcopalians who have never been reborn of the Spirit. And it usually isn’t their fault. How will they be converted unless we preach conversion? And why would we ever preach conversion if we shared [the] opinion that they don’t need it?” [10] In response, the Pittsburgh writer Emily Gardiner Neal savaged Howe as a “reformed Protestant minister, who has totally rejected Sacramental principles.” Let it be noted here that Neal was no liberal; an Anglo Catholic who had authored books on devotionalism, she was strongly to oppose the Episcopal Church’s decision to ordain women to the priesthood. [11]

It is in this context, then, that I would speak of Anglican Sunset, even as the more fervent proponents of realignment would doubtless prefer “Episcopal Sunset, Anglican Dawn.” Anglican identity is changing even as we sit here and we are party to that transformation. The global reformation is at our door, as postcolonial Anglicanism assumes the driving seat. For some, however, reformation and realignment increasingly take on the character of the view from Pisgah. There is an element of tragedy amid the promise, one which I think we would all do well to appropriate. Too often, the eagerness to be gone clouds awareness of the heritage that will be sacrificed on the altar of fidelity. It is sometimes hard to escape the feeling that the legacies of Kemper, Huntington and Brent may be unavoidable casualties of the realignment process.

What then has Anglican identity meant for Pittsburgh Episcopalians down the years and what does it mean today? We all claim the identity as our heritage, but in vastly different ways. “From its origin immediately following the American Revolution,” declared the rector of Calvary Church in February 2007, “until this date the heart and soul of this church is that it is an American church based upon democratic self-determination, American morality and not subject to foreign domination . . . . Since the 1780s, our church has been predicated upon American values and American morality. The American value system and the evolving American concept of non-discrimination should govern our future as they have our past.” [12]

“We call ourselves Anglicans,” the Bishop of Pittsburgh observed in Jerusalem in June. “Canterbury (Ecclesia Anglicana) achieved dominance in the first millennium . . . in the second millennium, the British Church (and her colonies, in turn) took the Gospel across North America, Australia, Africa, South America, Asia and to the ends of the earth . . . What is remarkable next, however, are the astoundingly British and overwhelmingly Western (Caucasian) systems that guide the thirty-eight Provinces of this worldwide Christian family as the third millennium begins. This ecclesiological framework has now become an obstacle to the story.” [13]

Here, then, is the classical division between what church historian Miranda Hassett recently called diversity globalism and accountability globalism, [14] in which proponents of the latter strive to shake off that peculiar relationship with the secular state which the Church of England bequeathed to its daughter church in the Americas in the form of the “national church idea,” a vision of Anglicanism as a communion of nationally distinct ecclesiastical bodies united in a common expression of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. From the mausoleum that housed the earthly residue of the national church idea has arisen a confessional fellowship spanning oceans and continents. “As long as the systems were working,” to quote Bishop Duncan once again, “as long as the systems were not obstacles to the story – there was little reason to question them.” [15]

So often is the notion of the birth of a new American Anglicanism established in 1789 brought to our attention that we sometimes forgot how much the Protestant Episcopal Church (as it was then known) retained a fascination with its English roots. When one considers how much of nineteenth century American religious history must be viewed through the lens of ethnocultural identity (German Catholic, Norwegian Lutheran, Dutch Reformed), it is not too much of a stretch to speak of an English Episcopalianism, understood less in terms of an immigrant church (though Pittsburgh could report a fair number of immigrant Anglicans) than in a mindset that continued to bind the church of a former colonial dependency to the mother church. “Ask them concerning the religion of their forefathers,” declared Joseph Doddridge, one of Western Pennsylvania’s first Episcopal evangelists, in 1816. “They all answer, they were Church people. Many of these people still retain an old Prayer Book as a venerable relic of antiquity. They still have a reverence for Baptism and the Lord’s Day. The Church, they say, was once pure and good, but it is now fallen, and, they fear, will never be revived again.” [16]

In 1875, Pittsburgh’s first bishop, John Kerfoot, swore to devote his energies to succoring the “old-country church people” drawn to the region by the promise of work in the iron and coal industries. It was Kerfoot who encouraged Church of England clergy to advise immigrants bound for America that the Protestant Episcopal Church was a constituent member of the Anglican family. He later persuaded Archbishop Tait of Canterbury to institute the practice of letters commendatory, issued by English clergy for their congregants to present to their Episcopal counterparts on arrival. [17] Several years later, on a visit to Greene County, Pittsburgh’s second bishop, Cortlandt Whitehead, met an Englishman who had resided in the district for thirty years without once seeing an Episcopal priest. Visibly moved, Whitehead baptized his six adult children and confirmed them together with their mother and the family then all received Holy Communion together. [18]

Awareness of the English presence was part and parcel of Pittsburgh’s Episcopal modus operandi well into the twentieth century. In May 1937, Trinity Cathedral hosted a service of thanksgiving for the accession of King George VI, attended by the British Consul in Pittsburgh. “I think, wrote one Wilkinsburg resident who attended the service, “that we have . . . a Consul who will mean something to us the British in Pittsburgh and one who will do his utmost for the cementing of good fellowship between the peoples of America and the British Empire.” [19] Only four years later, as Pittsburghers absorbed news of the devastation inflicted on London by the Blitz, the diocesan convention endorsed a resolution “extending its deepest sympathy with the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion in its titanic struggle to preserve Christianity for the world.” [20]

Continuity with the Church of England went only so far, of course. In the mid-nineteenth century, when the high church Anglo Catholic party was struggling to hold its own in England, its American counterpart was carrying all before it. In Pittsburgh, the first two episcopal leaders of the diocese helped consolidate the ascendancy of Anglo Catholicism over a 57-year period, despite a residual Evangelical presence. “Hearty Prayer-Book teaching and modes are everywhere here acceptable,’ Bishop Kerfoot warned a high church acquaintance in 1872, “but ‘advanced’ ideas and gestures make mischief right off. Such a man as you (sic) would call a little ‘Low’ who would be loyal to the Church and to this Diocese, and who is earnest and industrious, would do well.” [21] By the 1890s Evangelical influence was waning. They constantly asserted “the evil of High Churchmanship,” reported one observer, “and solemnly affirmed their opinion that every High Churchman was nothing more or less than a Jesuit in disguise.” [22] Symbolic of their decline was the defeat of efforts to prohibit the erection of a chapel or the appointment of a chaplain (whom Evangelicals feared would be a closet Romanist) at the new St. Margaret’s Memorial Hospital in 1890, a facility made possible by a generous bequest from Episcopal layman John Shoenberger. [23]

As the Progressive Era dawned, another English influence had secured a hold on the American Anglican imagination. [24] Promoted by such mainstream Episcopal leaders as William Reed Huntington, rector of Grace Church, New York, [25] the “national church idea” found favor with such Pittsburghers as Episcopal lawyer Hill Burgwin, who argued that the Protestant Episcopal Church should adopt the name, “The National Church of the United States .” Presbyterians and the Methodists lacked a national organization, Burgwin explained; Congregationalists and Baptists lacked a national territorial organization; and the Roman Catholics were as yet a missionary church. [26] Seven years later, the rector of Christ Church, Greensburg, voiced similar sentiments, while discussing a proposal to drop the word Protestant from the Church’s title. “[Why],” he demanded, “should this comparatively small branch of the one great Anglican Communion be the only branch that holds on to an epithet which . . . gives her a sectarian or denominational name?” [27] The popularity of the national church idea revealed the lingering attachment of many American Anglicans to notions of establishment, though its proponents sought to minimize this by suggesting that the Protestant Episcopal Church would serve merely as the vehicle for the reunion of the scattered strands of American Protestantism.

In the current political climate it has become increasingly difficult accurately to determine whether the national or global vision of Anglicanism prevailed in nineteenth (and indeed early twentieth) century America. Commenting on the 1899 ruling by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York against incense and processional lights, Bishop Whitehead emphasized that the American Church was in no way bound to take note of opinions generated by Lambeth Palace and further noted that the most recent General Convention had rejected a proposal to establish a board of arbitration under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury to consider questions submitted by the national churches. [28] Whitehead, however, wrote from the context of a church that had neither the means nor the desire to implement such state-sponsored measures as the Public Worship Regulation Act. Elsewhere he seemed to imply a rather different understanding of global ecclesiastical relationship. “[One] does not belong to St. Peter’s, St. John’s, St. Matthew’s parish; nor yet to the Diocese of Pittsburgh; nor indeed to the ‘P.E.C. of the U.S.A.’” declared a diocesan newspaper editorial (almost certainly composed by the Bishop) on the Pan Anglican Missionary Congress of 1908. “We are not baptized into these puny and ephemeral bodies, but into [the] great Holy Catholic Church.” [29]

Of all the bishops of Pittsburgh, only Whitehead’s successor, Alexander Mann, spoke unequivocally to a largely American idiom for Episcopal identity. “[Our] influence is out of all proportion to our numbers,” Mann observed in 1933, “and when the Episcopal Church speaks in her corporate capacity, no Christian Communion in the country commands more truly the attention of thoughtful men. We are one per cent of the population, we are thirty per cent of college and university students . . . We are too Catholic for some of our members and we are too Protestant for others. We are told that our position is illogical, but after all what is it but the position of the family, where one son is an extreme radical and one is an ultra conservative, but where all the children are held together by the bond of a common loyalty, a common love and trust. [30] Mann’s episcopate, however, largely coincided with the social and economic upheavals of the Great Depression. By the time he resigned his position in 1943 (the first Pittsburgh bishop not to die in office) circumstances had radically altered.

It has become an axiom of contemporary progressive discourse that during the 1970s and 1980s the Diocese of Pittsburgh was subject to a takeover by conservative elements not indigenous to the region. In this view, the broad and tolerant Anglicanism of Bishop Robert Appleyard (elected in 1967) gave way to the polarizing and sectarian Evangelicalism of Alden Hathaway (elected 1980) and Robert Duncan (elected 1995). For this shift much blame is also accorded Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, whose graduates are accused of infiltrating many mainstream parishes in southwestern Pennsylvania. Such sentiments were voiced as early as 1982 in a meeting of the diocesan Board of Examining Chaplains, according to the then secretary, David Jones. “This entire discussion,” he wrote, “opened a floodgate of words and emotions concerning Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. A number of strong feelings were articulated by a number of Board members: ‘I have a hard time even calling that place a seminary.” “They claim to be in the stream of Anglicanism – they aren’t.” “We shouldn’t send anyone there; how did the Bishop’s original policy change? There was a good deal of self-righteous indignation filling the room.’” [31]

For many progressives, contemporary Evangelicalism stands outside any recognized canon of Anglican belief. Writing in a recent online edition of Episcopal Life, Dr. Joan Gundersen of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh described the recently formed Somerset Anglican Fellowship, a breakaway group from St. Francis-in-the-Fields Church that opposed the latter’s decision not to realign, as “evangelical Presbyterians.” [32] While I do not doubt that many in that group would find common cause with conservative Presbyterianism, it is not clear to me that this disqualifies them from Anglican identity, if only because there are so few absolute theological benchmarks.

I still recall my amusement at reading an account of the landmark 1922 ordination service at devoutly mainstream Calvary Church, at which one of the participants was Frederick Emrich, a Congregationalist minister, marking the first time a representative of the Reformed tradition had participated in an Episcopal ordination. [33] Fast forward eighty-two years to 2004 and we find Bishop Duncan authorizing a bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church to confirm 13 candidates at St. Michael’s Church, Ligonier, a parish whose conservative rector has since confounded many by refusing to participate in realignment. [34] For good measure, I would note the comment of one Calvary parishioner in the early 1920s regarding his rector’s homilies. “The trouble with Mr. van Etten’s sermons,” he complained, “is that they are just as good for the Baptists as they are for us!” [35]

What then has been the reality of Anglican identity here in Pittsburgh in the recent past? My thesis, couched in more formal terms in a recently published Anglican and Episcopal History article, is that Pittsburgh’s shift from Episcopal mainstream to Anglican mainstream – from national to global, if you will – has been at least as much an indigenous development as the product of alien influences encroaching upon the ecclesiastical body politic. What took place between 1953 and 2003 owed as much to Bishop Austin Pardue and Samuel Moor Shoemaker of Calvary Church, as it did to Bishop Alden Hathaway and John Guest of St. Stephen’s, Sewickley.

It is a proud boast of contemporary Evangelicals that they seek to transform secular culture, not to conform to it. Such an undertaking is achieved not by ghettoization but by active engagement with the world around them, with a mobilized body of laypeople willing to share their faith with unchurched members of their community. In 1987, the senior warden of Prince of Peace mission in Hopewell testified that he had been brought into the Church as a result of the efforts of a group of laypeople who had made weekly visits to local neighborhoods. [36] The revival of St. Philip’s Church in Moon Township in the mid-1990s to become one of the largest congregations in the Diocese was also the result of a sustained program of evangelism and outreach. “These evangelism relationships are like plants,” declared the then rector. “They need a little water every day. If they don’t get watered, they’ll die.” [37]

Such activity is impressive but hardly novel. As early as 1952, Bishop Pardue had organized a diocesan commission on evangelism to send out teams of laymen “who have experienced a transformation in their lives by Christianity” to visit parishes and discuss that experience. These presentations frequently led to the establishment of prayer and Bible study groups at the parish level. [38] Another innovation of the 1950s – the parish life conference – also became popular in Pittsburgh. “What I found,” declared one participant “was the Church as a living, freedom-giving, heart-warming Reality – something I always knew existed but which I had never experienced with such intensity.” [39] Certain clergy also won their bishop’s warm approval. “[Father William] Bradbury,” Pardue noted approvingly in 1954, “has trained his people [Christ Church, North Hills] to be missionaries, but he himself sets a fabulous pace. They tell me that he is at the doorstep of every new home before the moving van arrives and that he ceaselessly and constantly rings doorbells and talks to everybody within miles of the church.” [40]

Specialist ministries to neglected groups have also been a hallmark of the Evangelical subculture. Those who have assisted at Uptown’s Shepherd’s Heart Fellowship, a congregation drawn almost exclusively from Pittsburgh’s homeless, are all too aware of the remarkable bonds that exist between the lightly-compensated clergy and lay leaders and the materially impoverished body of the congregation. Upriver, in economically straitened Ambridge, we find the socially diverse congregation of Church of the Savior, which began life in the living room of a Trinity School for Ministry seminarian. This is not your typical middle class Episcopal congregation, but a body of believers inspired by something more than a concern for liturgical propriety.

The territory may have changed since the 1950s but the search for innovative ministry has not, nor the desire to meet people where they are. Walter Righter, seeking to enter the ordination process in the early 1940s, was warned not to do so until Pardue had been installed “because [Bishop Mann] will insist you have an income of $2,400 a year or he won’t accept you.” Righter soon learned that his new bishop expected all future clergy candidates to spend a year working in a mill or factory to gain an understanding of working class culture, yet Pardue was not content simply to give his clergy a taste of working class life but sought to break through the crust of Episcopal custom to embrace the neglected communities of the Mon Valley. To take the Gospel to the lapsed Catholics of Charleroi and Donora was as potentially radical a step as any Episcopal Bishop of that day might have contemplated. [41]

The men Pardue found to answer that call proved more than equal to the task. Consider the case of Michael Budzanoski, an officer of the United Mine Workers and a member of St. Mary’s, Charleroi. “We cannot say that one side has been completely good while the other was wholly bad,” Budzanoski conceded in 1949. “The modern historian knows there have been selfish men on both sides . . . The threat of Communism may be having beneficial results among us. We’re being forced to make our Christianity into a living ideology.” [42] Equally striking is the story of Dave Griffith, the Homestead Works employee and CIO official who organized a committee to monitor workplace conditions during the 1950s that brought together representatives from the workforce, salaried employees and management, encouraged his co-workers to hold regular prayer meetings, and brought them to gatherings at Calvary Church where they mingled with the sons of privileged Episcopalians. [43] Crossing the class divide is nothing new for Pittsburgh Episcopalians.

Protesting racial injustice has been a notable entry in the progressive ledger and Pittsburgh’s progressives have reason to be proud of the achievement. “The Church is all kinds and all conditions of people,” Bishop Robert Appleyard pointed out in April 1968, “Here in our worship, here in our fellowship, we receive God’s friends to go out to the world, to go out to witness to the love, a love that we said in the Creed and in the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Our Father.’ We are then willing to comfort the family existing in its slum tenement, its ghetto, terrified by guns, by fire, by riots, by cockroaches, by utter filth . . . We can identify with those movements that have to do with good government, fair housing to all everywhere, equal rights and the highest standards of education for everyone. We can pray for those whose lives have become so bitter, so empty, so disconsolate, that they are not able to get down on their knees and pray. We can extend the fellowship of the Church into the lives and homes of those who have been rejected, those who have been forgotten, [those] who have been overlooked for years and years. [44]

Progressives had reason to be skeptical of conservatives during the 1960s when a parish like All Saints, Brighton Heights, could host a white-flight school, [45] or when Father Joseph Wittkofski of Charleroi could publicly oppose a convention resolution condemning “Membership in Segregated Organizations.” For all that Wittkofski’s views were shaped by the ethnically segregated culture of the Mon Valley, the former Roman Catholic priest’s right-wing politics were anathema to many and prompted a dramatic walkout by the Holy Cross delegation at the diocesan convention of 1969. [46]

There was, however, another side to this picture, the first steps having been taken by Walter Righter in the early 1950s, when he accepted an African American couple into his parish in Aliquippa, despite the fact that the town was organized as a series of ethnically segregated communities (known as “plans”). There were black churches in Plan Nine, a vestryman told Righter, to which his rector responded that none of them were an Episcopal church. “Well Reverend,” the vestryman answered, “you’ve got yourself a problem,” but Righter insisted on accepting Garfield Shaw and his wife and lost only one family as a result. [47] Yet such ventures were not limited to Righter. In 1964, comfortable St. Stephen’s, Sewickley, accepted Richard Martin as a domestic missionary-in-training and invited him to conduct work in Pittsburgh’s Hill district, which had lacked an Episcopal presence since Holy Cross had left the neighborhood in 1954. From Martin’s work with drug addicts developed an increasingly active Episcopal ministry to the African American community. During the summer of 1966, younger members of the parish helped coach their African American counterparts at the local YMCA, with six of the latter becoming the first African Americans to play in a junior tennis tournament in Pittsburgh. [48]

It is worth noting, I think, that concern for minority interests has persisted into recent times. In 1993, while Canon to the Ordinary, Robert Duncan was active in helping establish the diocesan commission on racism, which sought to encourage Episcopalians to undertake such tasks as mentoring, patronage of minority businesses and working to ensure equal access to housing. [49] As bishop, he continued to support the commission’s work and to draw attention to racial division in the Pittsburgh community. [50] In 1998, the commission on racism organized the first diocesan Absalom Jones Day celebration at Trinity Cathedral, which was distinguished by seminars on inequality and injustice, racism in the workplace and affirmative action in college admissions. [51] In 2000, commission member Wanda Guthrie went so far as to praise Duncan for his role in encouraging minority leadership. “I’m amazed at how far we’ve come with the help of the bishop to fill positions in the diocese,” she declared. [52]

“Scholars agree that Jesus founded a religion based on the claim of His own divinity,” Bishop Pardue wrote in 1947. “It is quite evident that you cannot accept Jesus as a great and good man while at the same time you reject Him as the Son of God. No great and good man could be merely that and make such preposterous claims.” [53] The following year, Pardue criticized what might be termed the distinctively American problem of constructing one’s faith for oneself:

Modern destructive liberalism has contributed much toward this individualistic attitude concerning things that belong to God. The debunking of faith, the Bible, the Prayer Book, the Creeds, theology, the Sacraments, and the Church, have all made us more and more disrespectful toward the eternal verities and therefore we have created inadequate little philosophical codes of transitory values which we claim to be ‘a religion of my own.’ [54]

And there’s the rub. At times, are we not all guilty of such a charge? We can look to so many efforts within this diocese to move beyond selfish individualism. To Nancy Chalfant and the Verland Foundation; to Richard Davies and the pre-school for handicapped children at St. Peter’s, Brentwood; to Sam Shoemaker and the Pittsburgh Experiment; to Becky Spanos and Anglicans for Life (formerly the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life); to David Else and the Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse; to Lynn Edwards and the Shepherd Wellness Center for AIDS sufferers; to Whis Hays and Rock the World Youth Alliance. Pittsburgh’s Episcopalians have set out to change the culture over the past half-century, not conform to it.

Amidst all this innovation, however, a parting of ways has become ever more apparent between confessing Anglicans (of all theological stripes) and their Episcopal counterparts. It came as no surprise to me last night to hear Joan Gundersen confess that no parish from District One had expressed interest in remaining part of the enduring Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The Beaver Valley, secured long ago by John Guest and his successors, is solid for realignment. It is still ironic to recall that in March 1991, it was Bishop Alden Hathaway who was expressing doubts about “the absence of ecclesiastic theology and [lack of] conformity with Anglicanism,” [55] at Orchard Hill Church, (planted by St. Stephen’s, Sewickley, in 1987) and yet nine months later Episcopal Life could feature it as an example of successful church planting. Within days, Orchard Hill’s leaders had announced their departure from the denomination, the first but by no means the last to do so. [56] We can debate the merits of their decision, yet the central fact remains that the shift in theological perspective has occurred at both ends of the spectrum. If Bishop Pardue – hardly a raving fundamentalist – was aware of it in the 1950s, it is pointless to argue a case of overreaction half a century on.

Early in this address I stated the undesirability of a historian predicting the future. Now I choose to exercise the speaker’s privilege. As we enter the twilight world of multiple standing committees and mutual disavowal of the legal standing of each side’s authorities, I confess I am close to despair. One thing I will declare: a protracted war waged for control of assets, while unlikely to destroy communities in Sewickley or Moon Township, in East Liberty and Mt Lebanon, could spell the death knell of all too many small parishes, from Kittanning to Crafton and from Monongahela to Mt Washington. Where, I find myself wondering, is the spirit that will seek first the preservation of a Christian community no matter what its affiliation? I can imagine the question at the Last Judgment: “How did you vote on realignment?” and the immediate follow-up (regardless of the answer): “Following that decision, what did you then do to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ?” What I cannot imagine is the question: “Whom did you sue (or against what suits did you defend) in order to preserve your property?” If this is an overly simplistic way of putting it, well . . . there’s a lot of that about these days.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books,according to their works. [57]

God grant that when that day comes we may all be found worthy of the task to which we have been called.

In closing, let me invoke one whose voice still speaks to us beyond the pejoratives and the pettiness of today, to the very heart of self-denying love – to Nancy Chalfant at that moment when her God and ours revealed that in her care for her handicapped daughter she was permitted to testify to the fullness of divine revelation and redemption:

I knew it must be God’s power, the power of the Holy Spirit . . . Oh, what hope I was filled with then! God’s power was real, and I was actually feeling it as it burned in my heart. I knew that he loved me and Verlinda and wanted her to be whole and well. I saw that I could be a channel through which that power could work, and I didn’t have to sit by helplessly as Verlinda grew in years but not in mentality. Jesus became real to me, no longer a shadowy figure living 2,000 years ago but a person to love and be loved now, today, a person who loved Verlinda, too, and who hurt when we hurt. [58]

If Pittsburgh’s Anglicans and Episcopalians seek a new post-realignment paradigm for relationship, they could hardly do better.

NOTES

[1] Convention Journal of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, May 10, 1955, 22.

[2] Deuteronomy 34: 1-4.

[3] http://www.churchworthfinding.org/Confessions.html

[4] See the discussion in Robert W. Prichard, “The Place of Doctrine in the Episcopal Church,” in Ephraim Radner and George R. Sumner, eds., Reclaiming Faith: Essays on Orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church and the Baltimore Declaration (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), 13-45.

[5] Psalms 55:14

[6] H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937), 193.

[7] Rt. Revd. Robert Duncan, “Anglicanism Come of Age: A Post-Colonial and Global Communion for the 21st Century,” The Global Anglican Future Conference, June 18, 2008, 2, accessed on July 9, 2008 at http://www.acn-us.org/etc/2008/anglicanism-come-of-age.pdf

[8]Convention Journal, 24 May 1966, 38.

[9] Trinity, June 1992.

[10] Church and Community: Christian Social Relations Bulletin, October 1973, RG4A/2.3:1, Box 6DC, Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (hereafter EDP).

[11] Church and Community: Christian Social Relations Bulletin, November, 1973, RG4A/2.3:1, Box 6DC, EDP.

[12] Revd. Dr. Harold Lewis and Florence Atwood to Rt. Revd. Katharine Jefferts Schori, February 28, 2007, accessed July 9, 2008 at http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=18365

[13] Duncan, “Anglicanism Come of Age,” 4.

[14] See Miranda K. Hassett, Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies are Reshaping Anglicanism. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

[15] Duncan, “Anglicanism Come of Age,” 4.

[16] Revd. Joseph Doddridge to Bp. John H. Hobart, December 1816, in Revd. Joseph Doddridge, Memoirs, Letter and Papers: Establishment of the Church in Western Pennsylvania (n.d.).

[17] Convention Journal, June 9-10, 1875, 51.

[18] Convention Journal, June 8-9, 1887, 68-69.

[19] O. Smalley to Rt. Revd. Alexander Mann, June 7, 1937, Nancy K. Pushee to Rt. Revd. Alexander Mann, May 16, 1937, RG2/3.1, Box 6BP, EDP.

[20] Convention Journal, January 28-29, 1941, 14.

[21] Rt. Revd. Dr. John Kerfoot to Revd. Dr. Dix, November 1872, quoted in Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh Vol. 2 (New York: James Pott and Co., 1886), 493-494.

[22] Revd. George Rogers, “Recollections of the Church in Pittsburgh Thirty Years Ago,” 15, June 15, 1915, RG5/1.1, Box 1DP, EDP.

[23] Convention Journal, June 11-12, 1890, 30, 38-42, 45-46; Rogers, “Recollections of the Church in Pittsburgh,” 8-9.

[24] See Brooke Foss Wescott, Social Aspects of Christianity. (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1887).

[25] William R. Huntington, The Church-Idea: An Essay Toward Unity. (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1870).

[26] Hill Burgwin to Editor of Church Standard, April 16, 1898, RG2/2.2, Box 3BP, EDP.

[27] Church News, April 1903.

[28] Church News, October 1899.

[29] Church News, March 1908.

[30] Rt. Revd. Alexander Mann, “Sermon Preached at the Consecration of TrinityChurch, Geneva, NY,” Memorial Day, 1933, RG2/3.1, Box 6BP, EDP.

[31] Board of Examining Chaplains Minutes, March 3, 1982, RG4A/2.1:2, Box 2DC, EDP.

[32] Episcopal Life, October 5, 2008, at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81847_ENG_HTM.htm

[33] Church News, January 1923.

[34] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 11, 2004; PEPtalk, May-June 2004.

[35] E. J. Edsall, Three Generations: A History of Calvary Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1855-1942. (Unpublished manuscript, 1942), 142.

[36] Diocesan Council – District X Minutes, September 21, 1987, RG4A/2.1:1, Box 1DC, EDP.

[37] Trinity, November 1996.

[38] Convention Journal, May 11, 1954, 41.

[39] Church News, May 1957.

[40] Church News, May 1954.

[41] Walter Righter interviewed by Jeremy Bonner, July 18, 2006, Tape A.

[42] Church News, May 1949.

[43] Helen S. Shoemaker, I Stand by the Door: The Life of Sam Shoemaker. (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 130-32.

[44] Church and Community: Christian Social Relations Bulletin, May 1968, RG4A/2.3:1, Box 6DC, EDP.

[45] Church and Community: Christian Social Relations Bulletin, August 1967, RG4A/2.3:1, Box 6DC, EDP.

[46] Convention Journal, May 13, 1969, 16, 34; Church News, June 1969.

[47] Righter interview, July 18, 2006, Tape A.

[48] Church News, June 1965; Christian Social Relations Bulletin, November 1966, RG4A/2.3:1, Box 6DC, EDP.

[49] Trinity, December 1993/January 1994.

[50] Trinity, December 1996/January 1997.

[51] Trinity, March 1998.

[52] Trinity, October 2000.

[53] Church News, December 1947.

[54] Church News, January 1948.

[55] Standing Committee Minutes, March 18, 1991, RG4A/1.8, Box 10DRB, EDP.

[56] Standing Committee Minutes, December 15-16, 1991, RG4A/1.8, Box 10DRB, EDP; Trinity, February 1992.

[57] Revelation 20:11-12

[58] D. Chalfant, Child of Grace: A Mother’s Life Changed by a Daughter’s Special Needs. (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1988), 30.

Across the Aisle meets at Trinity Cathedral

2008-10-17T00:47:00.005-04:00

This evening I attended an Across the Aisle meeting hosted by our parish and came away with a more positive impression than I anticipated.

First, the tone was civil. Jim Simons opened proceedings with an expression of hope that all present could agree on a common understanding of Jesus Christ and his salvific work and noted that the national church had expressed a desire for reorganization in as autonomous a fashion as possible. He outlined the manner in which he was informed of his removal from the original Standing Committee (by phone and without opportunity to discuss the matter with his former colleagues) and cited Title 1, Canon 1.2.4 (a) as the authority for the Presiding Bishop to recognize the new Standing Committee. He noted that the search for an acting bishop is under way and that a sitting bishop has been invited to assist the search committee in the weeks ahead. He also noted that there had been many messages of support and that he was receiving upwards of 100 e-mails every day.

Lou Hays from St. Paul's, Mt Lebanon, discussed parochial issues, being careful to stress that 'only individuals can leave the Episcopal Church.' He noted that parishes need do nothing to remain in the Episcopal Church, but that a vestry could confirm that it was remaining by resolution and by sending their assessment to the Episcopal Diocese (the Southern Cone Diocese was, throughout these proceedings, referred to as "the Oliver Building"). Those parishes still in discernment he urged to take time over their decision. Small dissenting groups might form house churches; larger groups should aim to reorganize; if the vestry seeks to realign but the congregation is generally opposed (is there any such situation in Pittsburgh?) then people should stay and "fight for your parish and your rights." If a parish was on the episcopal visitation schedule and the bishop turned up unannounced (Bishop Henry sitting next to me raised his eyebrows at that) one should invite him to worship but not allow him to preside, though if he did it "wouldn't be a fatal indicator" of realignment.

I asked Jim Simons where the Standing Committee saw the relationship between the realigning and the remaining some months down the road. He was noncommittal, but praised the Cathedral resolution as a model that might serve as a way forward and I believe he was being genuine when he said it.

Someone from St. Alban's, Murrysville, asked if a remnant from a realigned parish would be allowed to send delegates to the Episcopal convention, to which the answer was yes. A question about parochial endowment monies held by the Southern Cone Diocese led Jim to remark that parishes were free to ask for such monies to be returned to them and that he didn't anticipate that such requests would be ignored. "That doesn't sound like the character of folks there," he added.

Jim went on to note: "Your pastoral needs and your spiritual needs take precedence over every other issue;" and introduced Scott Quinn as the priest responsible for assisting parishes trying to rebuild their devotional life.

Joan Gundersen reported on the special convention planned for December 13. All parishes are to be asked if they're sending delegates and the main business of the day will be electing new officers (letters are to be sent to members of diocesan bodies other than the Standing Committee asking them where they stand on realignment). There will also be district elections (interestingly, no District One parish has expressed interest in remaining with the Episcopal Diocese - John Guest won the battle for the hearts and minds of the Beaver Valley years ago). It is possible that there will be an ordination at the closing Eucharist.

One attendee expressed frustration that the mailing list for the Trinity newsletter had been denied to the Episcopal Diocese (that was a bad decision on the Southern Cone's part, say I). Another person asked why they couldn't share properties with the other side. "Do the Southern Cone hate us so much," she asked, "that they don't want to share?" To me, this is a glimmer of hope that there are those on both sides looking for a way forward and I suspect there are many parishes that would welcome that option. Jim Simons agreed that that might well be the way to resolve some of the hurt down the road.

One final piece of interesting news. The Presiding Bishop will be at Calvary Church on All Saints Sunday!

To the Grey Havens: Diocese of Pittsburgh Convention, October 4, 2008

2008-10-04T16:15:00.009-04:00

Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over, and the Days of the Rings were past, and an end was come of the story and song of those times . . . And when they had passed from the Shire, going about the south skirts of the White Downs, they came to the Far Downs, and to the Towers, and looked on the distant Sea; and so they rode down at last to Mithlond, to the Grey Havens in the long firth of Lune. As they came to the gates Cirdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said: ‘All is now ready.’ Then Cirdan led them to the Havens, and there was a white ship lying, and upon the quay stood a figure robed all in white awaiting them. As he turned and came towards them Frodo saw that it was Gandalf; and on his hand he wore the Third Ring, Narya the Great, and the stone upon it was red as fire. Then those who were to go were glad, for they knew that Gandalf also would take ship with them. But Sam was now sorrowful at heart, and it seemed to him that if the parting would be bitter, more grievous still would be the long road home alone . . . and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West. There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle Earth and the sound of them sank into his heart.

And so, without great fanfare, the greater part of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh passes to the Southern Cone, almost exactly five years after its leaders first proclaimed at St. Martin’s, Monroeville, their intention to uphold historic Christian teaching and practice, whatever the Episcopal Church might choose to do. Once again assembled in St. Martin’s, the church where George Stockhowe presided over Pittsburgh’s Episcopal charismatic renewal, deputies affirmed a decision to realign with the Province of the Southern Cone. In the clergy order the vote was 121-33 (with three abstentions and two invalid votes) and in the lay order 119-69 (with three abstentions). The vote in favor was 76.1 percent in the clergy order (compared to 81.9 percent in 2007) and 62.3 percent in the lay order (compared to 66.7 percent in 2007). There were twenty-six more clergy delegates and fourteen more lay delegates present this year.

There were moments both of drama and pure entertainment. The sight of assisting (not Assistant, as he made clear) Bishop Henry Scriven ringing a large hand bell to summon dilatory delegates to their places should live long in the memory. Likewise, Canon Missioner Mary Hays’ description of herself as a “Pittsburgh babe,” by which she intended merely to reference herself as a comparative newcomer, evoked a storm of merriment. And perhaps equally sobering, in the immediate aftermath of the vote, Father Jim Simons of St. Michael’s, Ligonier, rising to ask that his opposition be recorded in the minutes (rejected by the presiding officer as running contrary to the earlier convention decision not to hold a recorded vote) and the somewhat ponderous announcement of Dr. Harold Lewis of Calvary that, in light of the realignment vote, his delegation could no longer be part of proceedings, a statement which, I fear, did not evoke quite the sentiments from the rest of the assembly that he might have wished.

Convention convened at 8:30 AM, with Standing Committee president David Wilson in the chair. After an invocation from Canon Hays, Wilson announced that the practice in the absence of the bishop is to appoint a presbyter to preside and Jonathan Millard of Church of the Ascension, Oakland, was appointed without objection, Wilson happily handing over a copy of Roberts’ Rules of Order for Dummies. Father Millard welcomed a certain representative of the Province of the Southern Cone, permitted on the floor by virtue of a provision whereby clergy from churches in communion with the Episcopal Church may be present with voice but no vote. Thunderous applause followed.

A quorum was reported to be present. After the presiding officer ruled out of order a motion that the credentials of lay deputies pledged to realign be regarded as invalid, discussion moved to the question of the admission of four new church plants – Seeds of Hope, Bloomfield; Charis 247, Coraopolis; Grace Anglican Fellowship, Slippery Rock; and Somerset Anglican Fellowship, Somerset. Procedural debates held up proceedings for a while as St. Francis-in-the-Fields, Somerset, from which Somerset Anglican Fellowship had been carved to accommodate more fervent advocates of realignment, objected to the Diocesan Council’s proposal to give each entity two delegates (when the old parish would have been entitled to three). Father Millard ruled that St. Francis be given its full complement, based on its original parochial report. Following this, Father Charles Martin, a hoary old parliamentarian of conventions past, rose to question whether it was appropriate to admit four new congregations to membership whose first act would be to vote themselves out of the Episcopal Church. As I understood it, his point had less to do with the appropriateness or otherwise of realignment than with whether it was proper to admit them now (rather than after the realignment vote). A cynic might be tempted to ask whether these plants were admitted at this time at least in part to bolster the “aye” vote. All the new parishes were admitted.

As was the case a year ago, convention approved use of a paper ballot that would provide a record of the vote without subjecting individuals to undue pressure (as a historian I rather regret this as it would be interesting to have the record of names to compare with the listing from the 2003 convention, but there you are). There followed a short discussion of the minutes from last year’s convention, where it was asserted that the chancellor did not make public a ruling that a list of those opposing realignment permitted by Bishop Duncan would not be printed in the minutes. There being no verifiable proof (only differing memories of that day), the convention retained the original language.

Convention Eucharist was scheduled before the realignment vote (a smart move to ensure one last Communion as one church). David Wilson was preacher and once again demonstrated that David Wilson of the blogosphere and David Wilson, the pastor, are two very different creatures. Preaching on the text, “Take Courage; It is I; Don’t be Afraid,” he offered a moving retrospective on his years of service as a laymen in three parishes, as a priest in three, and on more committees than he could remember. “There is no other diocese I have desired to be a part of,” he told the delegates. In coming to Christ, he had been able to look back and see the hopeless, sinful, self-centered, self-directed individual that he had hitherto been. Yet doing what has to be done takes courage. “The safe place is always in the boat,” not trying to walk on the water. What God called realigners and reorganizers to do took courage, but He still wants us to be risk-takers. Such risk-taking should not prevent us from drawing from the strength even of those who are diametrically opposed to us. “We may be opponents today,” he added, “but can we be worthy opponents?” Ultimately, whatever the vote, there was nothing to fear because God is with us and He would see us through the present difficulty. “Can we,” he asked in words that are strangely absent from much of the discourse at present, “bless each other as we separate?”

Convention then adjourned for district meetings with the declared intent to reconvene at 11:40 AM. In the visitors gallery I saw one Bill Eaton in a clerical collar and identified by his badge as AMIA, while in the corridor I encountered John Guest, still following diocesan conventions forty years after he first arrived in Pittsburgh.

Bishop Henry was heard to cry “I’m hungry, I want my lunch!” and delegates filed back to complete the process. After a procedural amendment regarding lay membership on the Board of Trustees, we turned to the composite amendment changing Articles 1, 12 and 13 of the Constitution. Joan Gundersen moved that since this conflicted with a “higher order rule” (the Constitution of the Episcopal Church) we should not proceed, but the presiding officer accepted legal advice that this part of Roberts’ Rules did not apply to questions of disaffiliation.

There followed twenty minutes of valuable testimony. Deacon Becky Spanos’s reminder to everyone present of the Episcopal Church’s neglect of the culture of life was a welcome reminder of the burden that so many within the renewal movement have had to bear, yet the testimony of Kris Opat (of the Three Nails plant), a TESM student and protégé of Whis Hays, that he could not support realignment demonstrates how many people are torn. From All Saints, Leechburg, a cry of pain for the “undefined Christianity” of recent years, was measured against a warning from Christ Church, North Hills, that withdrawal will leave the Episcopal Church even less accountable than it is today. From Battle Brown of Seeds of Hope the word that “Today is a Sad and Glorious Day,” to the pledge of Father Jay Geisler of St. Stephen’s, McKeesport, that he will not sever friendships after realignment. And my personal favorite (a fellow Brit), Father Philip Wainwright of St. Peter’s, Brentwood, affirming that many of the national church leadership are among the lost but that we are sent to call the lost to repentance. Many in Pittsburgh’s diocesan leadership have tried time and again to get them to see, Father Wainwright admitted, and he blames no one who feels they can do no more, but if anyone was in any doubt then perhaps God was still calling them to stay and fight. A motion to continue debate was defeated; clearly most delegates had had enough.

At 12:15 PM balloting began. While waiting for the result, delegates approved a provisional budget and parochial assessments, being warned that various parishes (on both sides) had indicated that they would cease to pay assessments starting tomorrow, depending upon the outcome of the vote. Responsibility for adjusting the budget was handed to Diocesan Council with instructions to report back to delegates in writing in six months time. Bishop Henry (soon to depart for England for a job with SAMS) reported on his experiences of the ongoing life of the diocese. Parishes, he said are getting on with mission. At a recent visitation to St, Philip’s, Moon Township, he confirmed 54 teenagers and young adults! We are still in relationship with one another, despite everything. Canon Hays praised the way that everything had been done in the past few years with “grace and generosity,” and expressed her anticipation for the future. She noted her particular gratitude to her mentor, the newest bishop of the Southern Cone.

At 12:58 PM, the result was announced, followed in succession by Father Simons’ objection and the departure of the Calvary delegation. As voting got under way on the clauses acceding to the Southern Cone, a message was read aloud from Archbishop Gregory Venables welcoming the Diocese of Pittsburgh to their new province. Following adjournment, delegates were asked to wait while the Standing Committee held a hurried conference. When they emerged at 1:16 PM, it was to announce that a special convention on November 7-8 will elect a “new” bishop. In the interim, Archbishop Venables has appointed Robert Duncan as episcopal commissary for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. To rapturous applause our new commissary took the lectern to declare: “It’s my joy to once again give episcopal leadership.”

And so here we are, whether like Frodo to sail into the west or like Sam to stand upon the shore and listen to the sigh and murmur of the waves. And truly an end has come to the story and song of these times.

Thomas Elton Brown reflects on The Road to Renewal

2008-09-29T19:59:00.005-04:00

Dr. Brown wrote the pioneering study Bible Belt Catholicism: A History of the Roman Catholic Church in Oklahoma, 1905-1945. He was kind enough to permit me to share his personal impressions of my biography of Victor Reed.

I was raised a Catholic in Oklahoma during Victor Reed’s episcopacy. My family was a member of Christ the King parish in Oklahoma City while the then Monsignor Buswell was pastor and the then Father James Halpine was the assistant pastor. Long before Mother Denise was removed from her position as the head of the convent in Tulsa, she taught me second grade at Christ the King elementary school. And I graduated from McGuinness High School in 1964. So much of your monograph was a narrative of my youth. Since I attended McGuinness from 1960 to 1964, you can figure out the events I remembered and the participants I personally knew. It was a first for me as a trained historian to read a scholarly study that both was a narrative in which I would be a primary source and was an analysis about which I had produced a secondary source. I was somewhat schizophrentic in my reading. I would be checking footnotes to identify sources and mulling over the conclusions of each chapter in light of the narrative. Only then I would swing to my personal recollections – “Oh yes, I remember that.” Or “Wow, I didn’t know that.” Or “Oh no, that’s not how it happened” [Or at least, “That’s not how I remember it.”]

In sum, then, I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it – both as an historian of the subject and as a reader with a personal involvement. As I initially wrote, I found it to be well researched and well written – both in a flowing writing style and a readily understandable structure. I thought you did an admirable job of placing Oklahoma within the broader context of the changes occurring simultaneously in other parts of the country. Some reviewers will often conclude a laudatory review by stating the monograph is a model for future studies or breaks new historiographical ground. Being so close personally to the topic and being so far away from active historical scholarship, I am not in position to make such a statement. But I can confidently state that it is as outstanding biography that captured a personality that truly wrestled with a range of issues as he struggled to do the right thing.

The Duncan Deposition

2008-09-18T20:26:00.005-04:00

Teaching has kept me from posting over the past month yet it would be remiss to pass over this day without noting the news from Salt Lake City. It would seem that the House of Bishops has now taken its stand by not waiting for the diocesan vote on realignment. Looking back on +Bob Duncan's period in office (13 years and counting), it's interesting to reflect how the persona of a secessionist has been projected on the Bishop of Pittsburgh by his critics back before his consecration. The historical record (of recorded statements at least) does not reflect that. While it's always easy to think how things might have been managed "better" had "we" had the handling of them, it's hard to see a way it could have been avoided. It was always too little and too late. As J. Gresham Machen concluded almost a century ago, Liberal Christianity and its Traditional (Conservative) rival will ultimately come to a parting of the ways. It may be amicable or bloody but in the end it will come. What is important is how one handles the fragments.

For the orthodox (especially the ardent proponents of realignment) this is but an incident on the road to a brighter future; it merely confirms their view of the majority of members of the House of Bishops. The damage done to institutional Anglicanism in America, I suspect, is mortal. According to David Virtue, dissenters at the meeting included the bishops of East Tennessee, Easton, Milwaukee, Montana, New Jersey, Northwest Texas,Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Virginia, none of them known for their conservatism. Perhaps they suspect the reckoning that must follow.

And so the legacy of the Episcopal Church passes into history. May the new future be all that its proponents believe it to be. I would that I had their confidence and yet at present I feel nothing so much as a sense of a fading vision. What awaits us beyond October 4 for me still has most uncertain contours.

For the Virtue report, see: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9024

And here's a downloadable spreadsheet indicating how the bishops voted, courtesy of TitusOneNine: http://kendallharmon.net/t19/media/Duncan_Deposition_Vote.xls

Paris is Worth a Mass?

2008-08-04T08:03:00.005-04:00

Over the weekend, I had occasion to turn to one of the great English historical classics, George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England, published in 1935. The following passage immediately caught my eye.

Liberalism in its Victorian plenitude had been an easy burden to bear, for it contained - and who could doubt it? - a various and valuable collection of gold, stocks, bibles, progressive thoughts, and decent inhibitions. It was solid and sensible and just a little mysterious; and though one could not exactly gambol with such a weight on one's shoulders, it permitted one to walk in a dignified manner and even to execute from time to time those eccentric little steps which are so necessary to the health of Englishmen . . . . But somehow or other, as the century turned, the burden of Liberalism grew more and more irksome; it began to give out a dismal, rattling sound; it was just as if some unfortunate miracle had been performed upon its contents, turning them into nothing more than bits of old iron fragments of intimate crockery, and other relics of a domestic past. What could the matter be? Liberalism was still embodied in a large political party; it enjoyed the support of philosophy and religion; it was intelligible, it was intelligent, and it was English. But it was also slow; and it so far transcended politics and economics as to impose itself upon behavior as well. For a nation which wanted to revive a sluggish blood by running very fast and in any direction, Liberalism was clearly an inconvenient burden. (pp.7-8)

No prizes for any analogy that might be drawn with the just-concluded Lambeth Conference. The reported optimism of the Archbishop of Canterbury at the conclusion of the conference embodies so much of the eerie twilight that characterized those last days of Edwardian complacency that ended with a gunshot at Sarajevo. Yet Dangerfield's thesis is pertinent to our present condition, for he held that the disintegration of Liberal England had preceded the outbreak of the First World War. "The question is," Lord Selborn told his fellow peers as they debated the Liberal-sponsored Parliament Act of 1911 which would strip them of their power indefinitely to veto legislation passed in the Commons, "shall we perish in the dark, slain by our own hand, or in the light, killed by our enemies?" (64)

A similar question hung over Lambeth 2008. Behind all the worthy language of building relationship and understanding cultural context, lurked the spectre of division and subdivision. Critics of the meeting predicted even before it began that it was so structured as to fail to express any view that might be regarded as definitive; so far, they seem to have been proved right.

To my mind, this is not something that can be blamed solely on the Archbishop of Canterbury. Unquestionably, the choice of an indaba structure was guaranteed to produce an outcome very different from that of Lambeth 1998, yet it was open to those conservatives who went to Lambeth to decline to participate in such activity with any bishop who refused to disavow the recent innovations in theological teaching and practice, as defined by the Windsor Report. With the boycott by most GAFCON participants, the only bishops to whom this would have applied would have been certain representatives of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Yet - the statement from the Sudanese bishops apart - no such declaration was made.

By the same token, I now find it increasingly difficult to view Rowan Williams with quite the same level of equanimity as heretofore. While I agree that the covenant process cannot and should not be rushed and I accept as valid his argument that his powers beyond the Church of England are seriously constrained, if he believes that the traditionalist point of view is a valid expression of Anglicanism there are many ways in which his moral authority could have been exercised to provide temporary shelter for those in the minority, in liberal and conservative provinces, if necessary. In North America, the threat of recognition of the CANA and AMIA bishops would probably have been enough to elicit compliance with Dar-es-Salaam. Archbishop Rowan spoke at great length in his presidential addresses about the need to build trust. When things have reached the state that we currently endure, building trust involves giving the minority the minimum they feel they need, even if it seems excessive.

In 1911 the House of Lords died in the dark; within a decade their Liberal foes had faded from the scene and the Lords endured with a power of temporary veto. In 2008 it would appear that the Anglican Communion is resolved to die in the light.

A Hymn For Lambeth 2008?

2008-07-15T09:18:00.004-04:00

If Samuel Stone was good enough for 1867, he's good enough 140 years later. And let's be clear about Verse Three. Every part of the Church - the orthodox included - have issues to address. Triumphing in our own strength could be as deadly as succumbing to heresy.

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood
He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

Samuel J. Stone (1839-1900)

First Peer Review

2008-07-02T14:17:00.003-04:00

Professor Thomas W. Jodziewicz of the University of Dallas has been kind enough to offer some positive impressions of my first monograph. To learn more, read his review at:

http://www.catholichistory.net/Book%20Reviews/BonnerRoadRenewal.htm

Pittsburgh Convention Comes Early!

2008-06-12T15:53:00.003-04:00

Diocesan Convention is now brought forward one month, with threatened deposition by the September meeting of the House of Bishops cited as "sufficient cause." On Saturday October 4 delegates will meet at St. Martin's, Monroeville (which also hosted the special convention back in 2003, where the process of disassociation began). It's going to be a bumpy ride.

See: http://www.pghanglican.org/Conventions/2008%20Pre-Convention%20Letter%20_October_.pdf

Tending the Sheep: Pittsburgh’s Episcopal Bishops

2008-06-10T21:28:00.005-04:00

This is the second of three articles that will appear in TRINITY, the diocesan publication of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. They represent an overview of a manuscript history, which will be published by Wipf and Stock in 2009.

Part I http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com/2008/05/out-of-this-furnace-episcopal.html

“We had a very weary ride over, or rather through, very bad roads to Waynesburg,” wrote John Kerfoot (1865-1881), “where at long intervals some ministers of ours held services years ago. We held service and I preached in the Court House, where we had a large and reverent congregation. We were guests of a family once ours, in which . . . the Prayer Book, and the memories of the early Church home, hallowed and taught by it, still kept their hold. Time has been sadly lost in that south-western part of the Diocese.” The office of bishop of Pittsburgh has never been a sinecure. The primitive transport networks of the nineteenth century imposed a particular physical strain and prior to the division of the Diocese of Pennsylvania in 1865 the western portion of the state received few episcopal visitations. Bishops can, however, be equally vulnerable to the distractions of external commitments. “It is painfully apparent to me,” Alden Hathaway (1980-1995) ruefully admitted in 1988, “that over the past few years I have lost control of my calendar and my appointments. It is driven by the needs and desires for my time of a great variety of good and worthy projects, but the result is that they control me rather than I having any intentional order and design to the stewardship of my time.”

Six of Pittsburgh’s seven bishops came to the office as outsiders, a pattern that owed much to a lay preference for a bishop without ties to local clergy. “Only two men in the Diocese, I was told,” Cortlandt Whitehead (1882-1922) sardonically commented years after his election, “had ever seen me – one a clergyman and one a layman – neither of whom voted for me – men of sense and fine discernment.” Perhaps the most brutal election – requiring no less than sixteen ballots – was that of 1922, which finally chose Alexander Mann (1923-1943), rector of Trinity Church, Boston. In 1980 another stormy convention witnessed a closed session in which Dean John Rodgers of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry (who had been nominated from the floor) was interrogated by convention delegates angry that they lacked adequate background information. Thankfully the convention then took only five ballots to elect Alden Hathaway, a decision that would mark the beginning of a singular change in outlook for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Fifteen years later, Canon Robert Duncan would be elected as Hathaway’s successor only after his initial rejection by the nominations committee and nomination from the floor with the backing of a wide cross-section of members of the diocese, many of whom did not share his theological convictions.

In the course of 250 years, Pittsburgh’s Episcopal bishops have represented a wide cross-section of the various schools of churchmanship, from the stately Anglo-Catholicism of John Kerfoot to the Broad Church pragmatism of Alexander Mann and the Evangelical fervor of Alden Hathaway. Not all were cradle Anglicans. While Robert Duncan (1996- ) waxes lyrical about his Anglo-Catholic upbringing (“If it hadn’t been for that parish church,” he says today, “I think I would not only have emotionally died but I would have physically died”), John Kerfoot was baptized a Presbyterian, a fact that concerned him enough to request a conditional baptism before his ordination in 1840. By contrast, Robert Appleyard (1968-1979) was an ordained Methodist minister before joining the Episcopal Church during the Second World War, distinguished by being the only English-speaker in his sixty-member Confirmation class on the island of New Guinea.

Several of Pittsburgh’s bishops have enjoyed prominent national roles. John Kerfoot , who helped broker an agreement to readmit southern Episcopalians to the General Convention a year before his election, was active in the debates that consolidated the ascendancy of the high church party within the Episcopal Church, while Austin Pardue (1944-1967) served as chairman of the national church commission on industrial work during the 1950s. Many bishops have also understood their responsibility to preach to the wider world, prompting Cortlandt Whitehead to denounce the 1892 Geary Act limiting Chinese immigration, Austin Pardue to become the first Episcopal bishop to address a national convention of the United Steel Workers, Robert Appleyard to promote Project Equality as a part of the national campaign for civil rights and Alden Hathaway to protest abortion outside the Pittsburgh offices of Planned Parenthood.

Such episcopal activism has nevertheless always been grounded in a coherent worldview, something that many postwar bishops have been obliged to emphasize. Austin Pardue, a writer of popular theological treatises during the 1950s, was one of the first to warn of the dangers of an entirely personal faith. “The debunking of faith, the Bible, the Prayer Book, the Creeds, theology, the Sacraments, and the Church,” he wrote in 1948, “have all made us more and more disrespectful toward the eternal verities and therefore we have created inadequate little philosophical codes of transitory values which we claim to be ‘a religion of my own.’” Twenty years later, Robert Appleyard would be more concerned with a theology that united discipleship and action. “We can identify with those movements that have to do with good government, fair housing to all everywhere, equal rights and the highest standards of education for everyone,’ he explained in 1968, “We can pray for those whose lives have become so bitter, so empty, so disconsolate, that they are not able to get down on their knees and pray.” By the 1980s and 1990s, however, the concern of the bishops of Pittsburgh was with the need to defend catholic tradition and biblical authority. “I have often been in the thick of conflicts within the Episcopal Church,” Robert Duncan reflected in 2002. “I make no apologies for this. Guarding the Faith is central to a bishop’s ordination vows. But others understand the meaning of the same vows and the same Faith differently.”

The shifting character of ecumenical dialogue – a central concern of many church leaders, tells its own tale. Episcopalians need to understand “what the true Catholic position is,” Bishop Whitehead warned in 1897, “as opposed to Romanism and Papalism, and understanding also what true Protestantism is, against what we protest and for what reasons.” Over thirty years later, his successor was more optimistic. “[Our] influence is out of all proportion to our numbers,” Alexander Mann insisted in 1933, “and when the Episcopal Church speaks in her corporate capacity, no Christian Communion in the country commands more truly the attention of thoughtful men . . . We are told that our position is illogical, but after all what is it but the position of the family, where one son is an extreme radical and one is an ultra conservative, but where all the children are held together by the bond of a common loyalty, a common love and trust.”

The postwar world would witness further development of ecumenical principles. Austin Pardue promoted connections with the Orthodox and Polish National Catholic Churches and in 1963 issued a pastoral letter responding to Pope John XXIII’s invitation to worldwide unity that was invoked by no less a figure than the Catholic ecumenist Cardinal Augustin Bea. Robert Appleyard led his diocese into Christian Associates, an ecumenical grouping formed in the 1960s to bring together many of southwestern Pennsylvania’s Christians, while Alden Hathaway established a deeper relationship with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. In 1988, Hathaway and Catholic Bishop Donald Wuerl pioneered the Christian Leaders Fellowship. The following year Hathaway signed a concordat with the Southwestern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “By rooting [our discussions] in the context of the local working experience,” Hathaway explained, “the understanding and respect of the church’s beliefs would be increased and thereby the appreciation for the theological strengths of the various communions.”

Ultimately, however, it is as bishops in the Anglican Communion that Pittsburgh’s leaders have been judged and will continue to be judged. “These rapidly growing and multiplying Anglican Churches of ours, are too much one to live and work apart comfortably;” declared John Kerfoot in 1879, “and are too strong and spreading to work apart safely; and too brave and independent to fear each other in a blessed co-partnership under Christ, in their holy task of winning souls and building up the kingdom . . . [The Lambeth Conferences] keep the one Faith written out brightly in the old lines of catholic Truth; these old lines traced afresh in living colors, which the truthful and obedient shall hereafter see with thankful memories of our counsels, when we shall have gone where the Truth and its sunlight shall never grow dim.” Almost a century later, Austin Pardue predicted that the Anglican Congress of 1963 might be the beginning of a process by which the Anglican Communion might “begin to act as one Church and not as 18 separate and individual churches.” Today, as the world waits for the outcome of Lambeth 2008, it may be expedient to remember the purpose for which the episcopate was consecrated and to pray that the price of leadership for all affected may not be too severe.

The Waning of Apostolicity: A Word from Bishop James Adams

2008-06-03T10:06:00.002-04:00

James M. Adams is the Episcopal Bishop of Western Kansas.

Although he is a member of the Anglican Communion Network, his Diocese is not.

The Episcopal Church has declared that it is indeed a church apart from the Anglican Communion. And this has not occurred because of sexuality, women's ordination, differences in doctrine, nor polity.

It has happened because The Episcopal Church no longer recognizes the universality of Anglican Holy Orders and truly is no longer a member of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church most of us were ordained into. How far will the separation go? I fear it will eventually be complete and Episcopalians can throw away all the books which claim it is an Anglican Church because it will have divorced itself from its past and become something apart.

Maybe that is what the majority want. Then those who have trouble with the historic Creeds of the Church can cut those out of the liturgies and declare a universal salvation at no cost or sacrifice. And it will be worth what people are willing to give for it. As little as possible.

From: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/13003/#more

Making Corrections

2008-06-03T09:15:00.009-04:00

An occasional embarrassment of publication is the discovery of errors. While these are often purely textual, they occasionally involve the reproduction of local urban legends. This past month I became aware that this had occurred in my first published monograph, The Road to Renewal. I must therefore admit that on page 202, I describe the publicity given by the National Catholic Reporter to Father John Bloms following his employment of girl servers at the Catholic parish in Ada, Oklahoma, as dating from 1964.

The diminutive Benedictine did indeed feature on the front page of the national paper celebrating the Eucharist facing the people and flanked by two young female parishioners, but although he instituted this practice in 1964, it was not until November 24, 1965 that reporters finally caught up with him. Two weeks later, the National Catholic Reporter dutifully reported that Father Bloms had signified his submission to an episcopal injunction to cease and desist.

While my error does not detract from the essential truth of the story, it nevertheless requires correction and this seems the best forum in which to acknowledge it.

The Gathering Shades

2008-05-16T21:25:00.007-04:00

I came across this only recently but it seems so pertinent to the season that I place an extract here. I suspect that others are experiencing the same emotions.

Comfort, content, delight

The ages' slow-bought gain

They shrivelled in a night,

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

Though all we made depart,

The old commandments stand:

"In patience keep your heart,

In strength lift up your hand."

Rudyard Kipling, "For All We Have and Are" (1917)