NEWS FLASH: "Fed-cons" unite in resolve to scupper Cantuar

Well, folks, Matt Kennedy and Stephen Noll are finally on the same page. Actually, truth be told, they always were, but there was this little issue of the upcoming Lambeth Conference to resolve between these two "fed-cons." For details, catch the latest over at Stand Firm.

Someone, somewhere along the way, coined the terms "federal conservative" and "communion conservative" to describe the differences between two rather nuanced and (up to now) ambiguous, i.e., hard-to-define, positions within what Kendall Harmon dubbed the "re-asserting" camp.

However, what divides so-called "conservatives" (I hate that term too) has never been so clear as it is today. The issue is CONCILIARISM, and we can thank Ephraim Radner and the ACI for articulating this difference beyond any question (See Dr. Radner's excellent article below).

"Fed-con" and "Com-con" are messy, imprecise, and outmoded designations. They should be put to rest. The real division is between non-conciliarists and conciliarists. Obviously, Noll and Kennedy are non-conciliarists, and Radner, Seitz, et al. are conciliarists. It should be obvious where Catholic in the Third Millennium stands.

Let's call 'em what they are.

A MUST READ: Ephraim Radner's "Lambeth Can Be What It Wants to Be"

Read the entire article at the Anglican Communion Institute website. Here's the Link

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The charismatic character of conciliar authority

In light of all this, I would emphasize that the real basis for the authoritative nature of the Church’s conciliar vocation is not, therefore, the entity of a “council” in itself. Councils are not Scripture. Councils themselves are not the Holy Spirit. Councils guarantee nothing. Just because one has a council – local or wider – does not mean that what it decides has any authority in Christian terms. Rather, the basis for the authoritative nature of the Church’s conciliar vocation lies in the faithful perseverance of its members in common over time, that is, in their willingness to live the Christian life together “for the Lord” and “in the Lord”. Since the authority of councils derive from their place in a historical series, it is grasped only retrospectively, and it is possible to do this only because one has carried through with the conciliar life together long enough and through a perseverant life of faithfulness on such a path that the truth is apprehended together. A synod may indeed come to a decision that is “true” in the sense of conforming to and displaying the truth of Scripture, but that council may never gain “authority” in the Church because it never took place within the extended conciliar life of the Church in such a way that its truth was apprehended.

The place where the Holy Spirit “authorizes” a council, therefore, is not first in the abstract nature of its decisions nor even in the juridically-defined and defining shape of a given gathering. It is in the ongoing Christian life of those making decisions and receiving them. Councils are authoritative when they are perceived, that is, as being “holy”, enacted by holy people and received by holy people, conformed to the Scriptural shape of God’s will. True councils are “charismatic”, in the qualification used by Orthodox theologians. Councils are authoritative, not only when they speak the “truth” (this is not a sufficient condition for conciliar authority), but when they are filled with and give rise to the gifts and fruit of the Spirit – faith, generosity, and so on, and “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Rom. 12:6ff.; Gal. 5:22f.). This should not be a surprise, Scripturally speaking: for it is the “gathering in my Name (cf. Mt. 18:20), in its rich and profound sense of the Spirit’s common life, that is promised the presence of Jesus. The Church “over time”, and hence as a truly conciliar reality, exists as Christ’s Body only as she embodies the Holy Spirit’s gifts and fruit in this sense that allows her to gather at all (1 Cor. 12).

The necessary and essential link between council and Holy Spirit, understood in the sense above, underscores a paradoxical reality: the Church’s councils need not be wholly “pure” in their make-up to be valid and authoritative. Rather they require only that some of their members be holy and, more importantly, that such holiness persist in the midst of the Church’s errors and sin. For the Spirit is “sent”; the Spirit does not constitute. The Spirit inhabits; the Spirit does not embody. This is the model of the apostolic church of Jesus, at the Last Supper and Passion: the holiness of the Church – and her councils – is given in the means by which her saints demonstrate the Spirit’s fruit within the Church’s fallenness, by the exercise of truthful witness, mercy and charity with and among her corrupted members, as Jesus did not only towards his persecutors, but towards his own followers who would and who did eventually abandon Him.

In light of this discussion, we can answer a number of questions currently being raised about attendance at the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. We can do so by observing the character of the Church’s first great councils – e.g. Nicea and Constantinople – and seeing how in fact they conform to the outline of conciliar life suggested above, and how they clarify current concerns. Although these two councils represent something “new”, from the perspective of history, they were not in fact “primordial”. They emerged from and took their place within an existing and long line of previous councils, some of considerable significance and weight. As “councils”, they are “general”, not de novo.

Does one sit in council with those with whom one is out of communion?

Nicea answered this question affirmatively: present were not only the Novationist schismatic bishop Acesius, but also Arians (including Arius himself!) who had previously and formally broken with bishops of the (finally decided) “orthodox” party. One does not need to share the Eucharist with another Christian in order for the counsel of the Holy Spirit to be authoritatively pursued among them.

In the midst of disputes within the Church, including ones that cut deeply and that burden us today, this reality (more fully demonstrated below) cuts in all kinds of directions.

Does one sit in council with heretics?

Invited to Nicea, as we know, were Arius and his friends and supporters (e.g. Eusebius of Nicomedia, who ended up causing so much trouble for the orthodox after Nicea, despite signing on to the final agreement).

The first Council of Constantinople, over 50 years after Nicea, had to revisit with much anguish and conflict the very matters already decided at Nicea. This means that the later council, by definition, was one engaged with known “heretics”, established as such by a previous council. Yet that did not prevent the council’s gathering and its engagement of orthodox and heretic together.

Does one sit in council with the excommunicated?

As the previous question and response show, “heresy” can already be conciliarly defined and still be engaged subsequently on a personal level at another council. Hence, Arius, along with at least two African bishops, Secondus and Theonus, had been formally condemned and excommunicated by a formal Alexandrian synod, some time before Nicea convened. Yet Bp. Alexander (and Athanasius, his then-secretary) met with them at Nicea. Both Nicea and Constantinople gathered bishops who had, at various times, been excommunicated and even exiled by opposing parties.

One of the questions to be asked in the context of the above is, “does not counsel with heretics and the excommunicated threaten the corruption of the council itself and of the church subsequently?”. This question has been posed within the Anglican Communion currently in terms of TEC being a liberal “heresy” similar to a “gangrene” or “cancer” whose presence cannot be tolerated in council for fear of contamination. Clearly this was not the view of those participating in the first councils of the Church, including the first two Ecumenical Councils. It was not so because the nature of Christian conciliarity, as we have explained, is founded on the power of the Holy Spirit within the lives of those taking council, not uniformly, but simply really – just as Jesus’ authority in the Church is based on His own pneumatic life, not on His members’ uniformly.

Certainly, there are a variety of responses given in the New Testament church to heresy or immorality within the Christian community. In all cases where possible, discipline is exercised. But discipline within the New Testament is not uniform – as Paul’s experience with the “false apostles” at Corinth makes clear – and is often set aside in favor of the “power” of the Spirit’s “demonstration” in the lives of the Church’s saints, regardless of the failures of others around them. Indeed, the one text in the New Testament regarding “gangrene” (2 Tim. 2:17) is not about complete disengagement with heretics, but about the proper kind of engagement, based not on drawn out controversy but on a particular kind of charismatic posture and example as a teacher (2 Tim. 2:24ff.) that leads the erring person to “repentance”.

The point here is that a council may choose to invite or not, on the basis of discipline or not – none of this validates or invalidates a council. These are prudential decisions, not matters of faith (see below).

Does one sit at council with those who have betrayed previous councils?

Following Nicea, an entire array of Arians and related “heretics” continued to agitate and in fact often “triumph” ecclesially through episcopal establishement and numerous new councils, both local and wider. Many, although not all, of these subsequent councils were attended by “orthodox”, who knowingly came to gatherings in which they were outnumbered, deceived, and mistreated. Their attendance, where possible, was based on the courage, calm, and faith granted them by the Holy Spirit, not on juridical realities. Such councils were often later judged to be invalid; but not because of their initial gathering, but rather because of their fruit. I personally believe it to be the case that, at certain point, if one can no longer trust the word of certain members of the Church, their presence at the Church’s councils do indeed become problematic. But again, to what degree is a prudential decision, not one based on principle.

Does non-invitation of potentially worthy attendees invalidate a council?

The Bishop of Rome was never invited to (nor did he or his formal representative attend) the Council of Constantinople (and he was, at the time, out of communion with the Council’s president, Melitius, as well as with others present). Yet, in time – and not a long time either – the Council of Constantinople was recognized by the Pope as a valid “ecumenical” council, despite not even having a formal papal representative present.The conclusion here, to restate a point made before and well-grounded in conciliar theology, is that councils are authoritative in their historical reception, not in their immediate form. The form, however, points to the character of the council in an initial way, and eventually reveals that inner character over time: one comes to council, and God does His work.

--The rest of the article.

Gerald Bray on Augustine's Conception of the Spirit as Love

The link between the Trinity and human salvation is clearer in Augustine than in any other ancient writer, and it has indelibly marked the entire Western tradition. The belief that God is love is now such a commonplace that we seldom realize what a new and powerful idea it was to Augustine. Unfortunately though, Augustine formulated his belief in a way which leaves it open to serious question. As he understood it, the essence of God was both spirit and love. Despite serious hesitation, Augustine eventually argued himself into believing that spirit and love were the same thing, with the result that the Holy Spirit must also be the personification of holy love.

The basis for this equation come from a comparison of John 4:24 ('God is spirit') with 1 John 4:16 ('God is love'). Today we would say that the word 'spirit' refers primarily to the nature of God, whereas love is the way in which God functions. To tie the two together as Augustine eventually did is to unite essence and function in a way which distorts the biblical data. This conjunction later became a standard feature of Western theology, which to this day likes to claim that pure being is the same as pure act. During the centuries when the emphasis was ontological, however, love tended to become a remote abstraction. Now that the emphasis has shifted to the functional, the opposite tendency has asserted itself, and love tends to be regarded mainly as a subjective feeling, which is then somehow identified with the very being of God.

In fairness to Augustine, it must be said that he himself never went anything like as far as that. He did not regard 'Spirit' as the personal name of the third person of the Trinity, but only as a designation of the divine nature. As such, the word could and did refer equally to the Father and the Son. On the other hand, Augustine toyed with this question of finding the personal name of the Holy Spirit, but never really came up with a satisfactory answer. At one point he suggested that it might be 'gift' (donum), although that is hardly a personal name in the sense that we would understand it. Later on, he put forward the view that the Spirit's personal name was Holy. this was slightly better than 'gift', but it suffered from the fact that, like Spirit, it was a term which could be applied to the other persons of the Trinity as well.

Augustine's difficulty here is symptomatic of his whole approach, which locates the unity of the Father and the Son in the person of the Holy Spirit. But because the unity of God is expressed at the level of nature, there is an inescapable tendency to think of the Holy Spirit as a personification of the impersonal qualities which constitute the being of God. Admittedly, this tendency is helped to some extent by the impersonal name which is given to the third person, even in the Scriptures, although of course he is also called Comforter (Paraclete). Augustine was aware of this, but neither he nor his successors made much of it when discussing the names of the Trinity in their writings.

--Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God (Intervarsity, 1993), pp. 171-2.

Latest from the Anglican Communion Institute

The whole article is well worth reading. What follows below is the conclusion. Here's the LINK.

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Given the fact that the Primates have been assigned "enhanced responsibility" by the Lambeth Conference itself, and given the fact that no one with the authority to do so has withdrawn their proposal to address the threat of fracture our Communion now faces, and given the fact that the claim made that these proposals do not accord with the Constitution and Canons of TEC remains no more than an unsupported assertion, we ask four questions:

1. The Primates still have warrant to make their appointments to the Pastoral Council. Why have they not done so?

2. The Archbishop of Canterbury still has the authority to make his appointment to the PastoralCouncil. Why has he not done so?

3. The Presiding Bishop of TEC still has authority to make her appointment to the Pastoral Council. Why has she not done so?

4. The Windsor Bishops still have warrant to make their nominations for Primatial Vicar. Why have they not done so?

We believe that the credibility of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Meeting of the Primates, the Presiding Bishop of TEC, and the Windsor Bishops depends upon a speedy answer to these four questions. Some may think us naïve for continuing to think these instruments of unity still have credibility. We have, however, considered the alternatives-all of which portend the end of Anglicanism as a communion of churches. We pray, therefore, that those in whose hands Providence has placed responsibility for the peace, faithfulness, and unity of the church will respond publicly and speedily to these questions that rest so heavily upon the minds and hearts of all who care about the future of the Anglican Communion.

Christopher Seitz
Philip Turner
Ephraim Radner

Officers of the Anglican Communion Network

A Blast from the Past: What did Augustine and Arius have in common?

--Originally posted on June 26, 2006. I'm reposting this in view of Trinity Sunday.

Answer: Both Arius and Augustine defined deity in terms of divine causality, thus understanding causality to be the essential attribute of deity rather than the hypostatic (i.e. personal) feature of the Father's monarchy.

In this confusion of Person, nature and attribute, Arius went on to assert that only the Father was truly God, for the Logos was begotten of the Father. Thus Christ could not be fully divine in that he was "caused by," and in no way the "cause of," the Father. Divine causality and essential deity are inextricably mixed.

In his argument against the later heresy of semi-Arianism, Augustine conceded this point, but went on to employ it in favor of the essential deity of Christ by positing the filioque doctrine. Thus Augustine saw the Son as the "cause," along with the Father, of another divine Person: the Holy Spirit. "For if the Son has of the Father whatever He has, then certainly He has of the Father that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Him" (De Trinitate 15:26:47). In other words, the Son receives divine causality from the Father and thus is fully divine, for the Holy Spirit proceeds from both.

At this point the inconsistency in Augustine's view of the Trinity becomes apparent, for where does this leave the Holy Spirit? If the Holy Spirit is a fully divine hypostasis then wherein is manifested the attribute of causality?

From the Telegraph: Church Call on Intelligent Design

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/02/ndarwin02.xml

By Graeme Paton

The Church of England yesterday suggested that schools should teach the controversial theory of intelligent design in science lessons.

The Rev Jan Ainsworth, the Church's head of education, said that the belief - that man was created by an intelligent being, such as God - should have a place in the national curriculum.
The comments come despite warnings from academics that intelligent design and creationism are "anti-science" and a veiled attempt to smuggle fundamentalist Christianity into teaching.
It also places Mrs Ainsworth on collision course with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Government ministers, who have told schools to keep strict Biblical interpretations of life out of school science lessons.

Speaking at a seminar on faith schools, Mrs Ainsworth, who is responsible for almost 5,000 primary and secondary schools, said: "While it is not something I would subscribe to, it is a recognition that there are different ways of looking at the evidence."

Intelligent design is often seen as a more "acceptable" version of creationism, the strict Biblical theory that God created the world in six days 6,000 years ago.

Its proponents argue that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own, suggesting that there was a hidden hand behind the creation of man.

Over at Stand Firm: Hospitality and Heretics

Stand Firm's Matt Kennedy recently wrote an article of interest entitled, Hospitality and Heretics: The Necessity of Discipline in the Anglican Communion. The article itself is what I've come to expect from Matt: a well-written, impassioned argument for the federal conservative view. But the comment section reveals the essential flaw in the fed con view, and why a presumed Communion set up in the fashion that fed cons envision will never work.

In the providence of God, the Church used councils to deliberate controversial matters, and, yes, actually to DEFINE dogma, not merely to reiterate scriptural teaching, as Matt seems to be saying in his remarks (one commenter does a good job challenging Matt on this point). Conciliarism as a process for discerning what the Spirit is saying to the churches is often messy, political, and (in the ancient world) has even been violent. And in the aftermath of a council (i.e. the period of reception for a council's teaching), things could even be worse. As unholy as it sounds, like or not, orthodoxy triumphs by virtue of being the "last man standing" after a conflict has subsided.

The Anglican Communion is a very young community of churches, ever inching their way to a conciliar model of community life and discipline. We are not there yet, and the present struggle is by no means the first or last challenge that will threaten its very existence.

In short, I think Matt should have started with Acts 15 rather than with Matthew 18.

Prayer for the Departed

Why does the Church pray for the departed? Simple: because they, like us (or, better, along with us), have not yet experienced the full redemption of their beings, which will take place at the resurrection. The Church on earth, entrusted with the care of souls of all the faithful, pleads the mercies of God in solidarity with all of its members, both living and dead. This implies nothing at all about the "state" of the dead before the resurrection apart from the acknowledgement that BEFORE the resurrection neither they nor us have reached the goal, and reaching that goal depends completely and utterly on the mercy and grace of God.

Non-specificity characterizes the Church's prayers for the departed; that is, the Church does not pray for temporally-bound "needs." Rather, the Church prays for the departed within the general intercessions for the whole Church, that they, along with us, may share with all God's saints in his eternal kingdom. Someone might ask, what profit lies in such prayers for the departed? But one might just as well ask, what profit lies in such prayers for those of us who still live here on earth? One will find the same answer for both questions.

Darwin's Pope?

Darwin's Pope?"
by Kenneth R. Miller

"Intelligent design," the notion that living things are too complex to have been produced by evolution, has gotten a cold shoulder in the scientific community. Not so in the popular imagination, where its advocates have convinced much of the public and even an Austrian cardinal that it deserves a place alongside Darwin in science classrooms.

The public-relations successes of what's being widely called "ID" reflect the skillful way in which its proponents have framed the debate to place God and Darwin in direct opposition. As Phillip Johnson, the movement's most respected leader, has candidly described it, the principal strategy followed by the "design" movement "is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God." That, the ID folks are convinced, is a winning argument, at least in the United States.

Unfortunately for ID, for years there has been a dramatic, highly visible, well-known contradiction to this claim—the Roman Catholic Church's acceptance of evolution as being entirely consistent with Christian teachings. From Pius XII's first cautious but positive words in 1950, in Humani Generis, to John Paul II's recognition that evolution was now "more than just a hypothesis" and was supported by "discoveries in various fields of knowledge," in a 1996 address, the Church has made it clear that the scientific conclusions of evolution need not contradict the core teachings of the Christian faith. Indeed, reflecting on the broad scientific support for Darwin's theory, John Paul II stated flatly that "truth cannot contradict truth." The "truths" he had in mind were the empirical scientific truth of evolution and the eternal truths of faith. Powerful stuff.

Why, then, did Benedict XVI, on the day of his coronation, preach a homily saying: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." And echoing Benedict's words, on July 7, 2005, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn wrote in The New York Times that "neo-Darwinian" theory is not "compatible with Christian faith." Incredibly, his essay bore the provocative headline "Finding Design in Nature."

In the United States, those words caused hearts to leap in the breasts of the anti-evolution movement. To hear the ID folks tell it, it's just a matter of time before the new pope places the influence of the Catholic Church squarely into the fight against godless Darwinism. A few have even suggested that Benedict will invite the champions of ID to the Vatican for a private audience.

While no one should be foolish enough to state categorically what the Holy Father will or will not decide on any issue, I'd urge the ID crowd to wait a while before booking those first-class tickets to Rome.

Although Benedict is widely viewed as a theological conservative, with respect to science, his conservatism fits squarely into the mold of Augustine and Aquinas, and follows the long Catholic tradition of respect for scientific rationalism that shaped John Paul II's 1996 endorsement of evolution.

So, what are we to make of his assertions that we are not the "casual and meaningless products" of evolution? We can start with Benedict's own writings, and in particular, I'd point to his book In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall.
After describing the scientific elements of neo-Darwinian theory, then-Cardinal Ratzinger asked: "What response shall we make to this view [evolution]? It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. But we must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error."

Ratzinger, like John Paul II and Puis XII before him, is not at all concerned about the emerging evolutionary account of humankind's material origins. As he makes clear, "this is not a matter for faith." However, he draws the line at any suggestion that we are the mere products of "chance and error," and the reason is the Christian teaching that humanity is not here by accident, but as the intentional result of a Divine plan. As he explains later, the point is: "Human beings are not a mistake, but something willed; they are the fruit of love."

Does this rule out evolution, with its emphasis on chance and necessity, and leave room only for the intentionality of "design"? Cardinal Schönborn certainly seems to think so. But to find the true answer, we need only to look at "Communion and Stewardship," a 2004 Curia document produced under Ratzinger's watch by the International Theological Commission. Paragraph 63 of this document carries a ringing endorsement of the "widely accepted scientific account" of life's emergence and evolution, describes the descent of all forms of life from a common ancestor as "virtually certain," and echoes John Paul II's observation of the "mounting support" for evolution from many fields of study. But just like Ratzinger, it draws the line at any theory of evolution that might "deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life."
I don't doubt for a second that the advocates of ID would be tempted to pencil in their "designer" for the "causal role" that the document reserves for God. But that would be a great mistake, as the document points out a few paragraphs later. Specifically addressing the arguments made to support ID, the commission writes that the argument between ID and evolution concerns "whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God's providential plan for creation."

As the late Stephen Jay Gould was fond of pointing out, evolution is indeed a truly contingent natural process. To a nonbeliever like Gould, the inherent unpredictability of a contingent process was proof that the result of the process could not be the handiwork of a gracious God. But Gould, like many in science, seriously underestimated the philosophical depth of religious thought. As Aquinas wrote: "The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency."

The key insight, which sits at the very heart of Benedict's thoughts on the matter, is that "neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science."

Precisely. The point of the pope's homily was not to take issue with evolution itself, but with the philosophical view that humans are nothing more than the casual and meaningless products of that process. Schönborn's ill-considered op-ed made the same point, but erred in its mistaken assertion that these philosophical views are an inherent part of neo-Darwinian theory. The authentic lesson to be stressed is that "divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided," a process like evolution.

Pope Benedict may never be seen as "Darwin's Pope," but his writings and homilies place him squarely in the tradition of scientific acceptance established by his predecessors. The Holy Father's concerns are not with evolution per se, but with how evolution is to be understood in our modern world. Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God's plan, while "evolutionist" philosophies that deny the Divine do not. That was the point of the pope's coronation homily.
Despite claims to the contrary by the ID camp, a careful reading suggests that the new pope will give quarter neither to the enemies of spirituality nor the enemies of evolutionary science. And that's exactly as it should be.

--Kenneth R. Miller is Professor of Biology at Brown University, and author of the book Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (Harper).

The Word of the Lord? Indeed, yes, thanks be to God!

Should one ever end a first lesson reading from the Apocrypha (sic) with "The Word of the Lord?"

For much of my time as a teacher of liturgy I would have answered this question firmly in the negative, appealing to Article VI (39 Articles of Religion). And for pastoral reasons I still do prefer the optional acclamation, "Here ends the first lesson," (or simply, "The first lesson," which goes better with the response "Thanks be to God"), when reading from the Deuterocanon (as I prefer to call it). However, I no longer hold that opinion so firmly. Why? Simply put: the Church should rightly affirm the deuterocanonical books as belonging to the Canon of Scripture.

Before I proceed with my argument, I will caution the reader to keep in mind that "canon" and "inspiration," though obviously related theological concepts, should not be confused or equated. Christians affirm that God inspires the writing of scripture. However, God does not canonize scripture; rather, the Church does. Canonization means the process of recognizing and authorizing those books for public worship where the Church has heard, and continues to hear, God speaking to his people. Hence, the Canon includes those books that the Church confidently affirms (defines) as those where it hears the voice of God. These in turn are authorized for public worship.

Historically, the debate centers around two competing views of canonicity with regard to the Old Testament, and consequently two understandings of scriptural inspiration: what I term the "narrow vs broad" and the "hard vs soft" views respectively. Each understanding employs different, though (I would argue) not necessarily conflicting, criteria.

Those who affirm the narrow canon position reckon as canonical only those OT books that (1) the Jews receive as scripture, and thus (2) no one in the Church disputes. Naturally, then, the Church confidently employs these books for the confirmation of doctrine (a la Jerome), which fact tends to harden (or restrict) inspiration to only those books that meet these criteria.

The broad canon view uses a different criterion to determine an OT book's canonicity: authorization for use in public worship. Thus, in practice, this broad canon view recognizes the Septuagintal Old Testament tradition, both in form and content, as canonical scripture. However, this view does not preclude an important distinction within the Old Testament between the Hebrew (or "Proto") Canon and what Article VI refers to as the "other books" (i.e., deuterocanon). Advocates of this position have ranged from those who recognize no or very little distinction in degree of inspiration between the "protos" and the "deuteros" (e.g., Trent), to those who give first place of honor to the Hebrew Canon and second place to the deuteros. Naturally, those who hold this latter position favor "softer" or less restrictive categories of scriptural inspiration. Throughout history, the broad canon (along with the soft view) has been the predominent position, commended by the continuous and unbroken use of the Septuagintal tradition in the worship and devotion of the Church.

Interestingly enough, Jerome's distinction between those books used to confirm doctrine (protos) and those books read only for edification (deuteros) has co-existed comfortably within the broader canonical view (despite the fact that Jerome argued for a narrow canon!). Cardinal Cajetan (yes, Calvin's nemesis) sums up the matter quite succinctly when he states: "...these books (or any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of the faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorized in the canon of the bible for that purpose" (Comments on Esther).

I do realize, however, that the Protestant mind seems hardwired to think only in terms of either/or categories of scriptural inspiration: i.e., either a book is inspired or it is not. Indeed, for many, the whole notion of sola Scriptura stands or falls on this very consideration. However, the ancients quite comfortably and aptly thought in terms of degrees of scriptural inspiration and/or importance. For instance, Jews to this day venerate the Torah (i.e., Pentateuch) in a manner that underscores their belief that only the books of Moses constitute the immediate Word of God; relegating the Prophets and (even to a lesser degree) the Writings to the lesser status of books where God spoke mediately through human beings. In similar manner, many church fathers (e.g., Augustine) readily accepted the deuteros into the ranks of canonical scripture, while admitting their inferior status, or lesser degree of inspiration. Even the "hardliner" Athanasius did not hesitate to afford the deuteros a certain level of scriptural dignity.

In the final analysis, in an Anglican context, I think how one defines the Canon boils down to preference. I can happily accept the assertion that Article VI does not admit to the canonicity of the deuteros, because I know the Article employs the narrower definition that limits the term to only those books within the biblical corpus that are used for the confirmation of doctrine. However, in liturgical praxis, I would argue that the Anglican tradition fits more comfortably in the broader canonical tradition, which would admit into the Canon of Scripture all the books of the biblical corpus that are authorized for publich worship. The crucial distinction between those books used for the confirmation of doctrine and those books read only for purposes of edification remains operative in both understandings. But to my way of thinking, God inspired both the protos and the deuteros, albeit for different purposes and to different ends.

Thanks be to God!

P.S. - The illuminated text above pictures Tobit being blinded by the droppings of a sparrow - an apt metaphor for many contexts.

Emerging from the depths of despair...

...Actually, just emerging from a long hiatus, an even longer soul-searching, some honest reappraisal of my priorities, and some annoying health issues. Nuff said.

Over at Stand Firm, frequent contributor Sarah Hey articulates the Anglican state-of-affairs quite well when she states: "There are only two real options for the Anglican Communion: discipline, and thus a restored, clear, boundaried identity, or fracture and an incoherent, undisciplined identity for what remains of the Anglican Communion."

I very much concur with this statement (though not very frequently with much else over at Stand Firm, I should note). I also have to admit that, of the two options, our present struggles will probably yield the latter outcome. If so, then (personally speaking) I will have to prepare for an existence in "what remains of the Anglican Communion," for (at this time) I cannot see myself joining the much anticipated Nigerian-led exodus!

Despite my hiatus and soul-searching, I wish my readers to understand that my essential understanding of Anglican Catholicity has not changed. I believe the Church Catholic always lives within the tension between its struggle to maintain fidelity to its creedal commitments and the need for the application and adaptation of those commitments to the unique set of contextual pressures that face the Church of every age and in every culture. Into this tension we are obliged to mix the advances of learning (theological, scientific, societal, hermeneutical, etc.), along with the scholarly reappraisal of time-honored formularies and traditions that inevitably takes place in each age. Sometimes such inquiries prove harmful and end up hindering progress (like mutations in the genetic code). Much of the time they prove benign. But sometimes (and I believe ultimately) the process of inquiry, testing, and affirmation produces the very theological adaptations necessary to articulate and communicate the "faith-once-delivered" from generation to generation. In short, the Church Catholic must inevitably experience conflict, often tumultuous conflict, as it balances out these factors. We live in just such an age.

P.S. - Written diligently in "E-Prime".

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

Okay, so I stole that line from Pink Floyd. "Comfortably Numb" -- great song. For those who may still come by to read this blog, be on the lookout for the resumption of my blogging come this weekend. I spent much of last weekend (Thurs.-Mon.) in the hospital. I had a little chest pain scare, and went through a number of tests over the weekend, including the dreaded stress test...not fun. Heart seems okay. I'm still having chest pains, but at least I'm not stressed about it. Ha! That's ironic since stress seems to be the problem!

Ephraim Radner on the Communion Covenant and the Primate's Communique

If it hasn't been obvious to my readers yet, I'm taking a bit of a Lenten break from blogging; not an absolute "fast" mind you, just a rest. Meanwhile enjoy this article by Ephriam Radner, of whom I am a big fan. Biretta tip to T-1-9.

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(Based on a talk to the clergy of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, February, 2007).

The Proposed Covenant recently commended by the Primates to the Communion for study and response deserves serious discussion, not only with regards to its particulars, but more importantly, with regard to its larger purpose and character. However critical may be the recommendations of the Primates with regard to TEC in their Tanzania Communiqué, it is essential to see these as but the outline for an “interim” arrangement until the Covenant itself will be finalized and accepted or rejected by individual churches. It is possible, of course, that Lambeth ’08 will choose a different path forward, but I believe this is unlikely. For the present it appears clear: the Covenant frames the Communiqué. This is crucial to understand, because it tells us something about how we are invited to approach the entire calling as a Communion that we have been given in this difficult time.

My hope below is to bring some of the contours of this calling into profile through a reflection on the Proposed Covenant that is now before us all. Although I was personally party to its drafting, my remarks – except where purely descriptive of working details or others explicit on the matter – explain my own views, not some grand vision now formally ensconced in the Communion’s articulated self-identity. The Covenant is “before” us; it is not yet accepted. However, one of my main hopes here is to argue that it is before us because, in a real sense, it is “already” beneath us, upholding much of our life and directing many of our struggles now for some time. I will therefore talk about the Covenant primarily in its general meaning and historical context, and only secondarily in its details. The details follow, I believe; they do not lead this process.

The Covenant: something new?
A brief article on the recent Dar es Salaam Primates’ meeting appeared recently in The Tablet, the weekly British Roman Catholic paper. It was written by William Franklin, former General Seminary professor, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School, and now associated with the Anglican Center in Rome. Franklin’s piece was entitled, “Winds of Change”, which sets the tone of his evaluation of the Primates’ Meeting. For Franklin claims positively that, out of this gathering, there has now emerged a “different kind of Anglicanism” for “21st century”, one that moves “towards a greater interdependence than would have been imagined even a decade ago”, and that “reflects” the koinonia [or “communion”] ecclesiology of the agreed statements of the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue” in far deeper ways than might have been expected only recently.

Something new has come into view, then. Something unexpected, perhaps even amazing. And although he doesn’t address it directly, I imagine that Franklin would want to say that the proposed Covenant itself, commended by the Primates at their meeting, also represents this “new koinonia reality”, visible in its proposals for structural interdependence and common catechetical, missionary, and disciplinary commitments.

While I share Dr. Franklin’s enthusiasm for the Communiqué, by and large, in its communion-orientation even as it informs the Covenant, I wonder about the way he discerns its character in terms of novelty. Certainly, this has been the source of many criticisms of the proposed Covenant in its very identity: it is somehow an innovation within Anglicanism, some have said, an alien element whose introduction will further just the kinds of “curial” re-orderings of the Communion that will undercut the traditional autonomies the buttress Anglican ecclesial life and witness. So how new is the Covenant’s purpose and form in fact? My main argument below is that it is not new at all. It is, rather, who we already are and are called to be more and more.
Local realities

Everyone, of course, has their own take on what “Anglicanism” really is all about. And the possibility that a Covenant might actually define this for the first time in a way that would transcend personal views is, in the face of our idiosyncratic arguments, somewhat threatening. One response to the threat is simply to say that definition is itself idiosyncratic with respect to Anglicanism. The “covenant type” of Anglican, in this reading, is analogous to the Ritualist and the Metaphysical and the Coleridgean or Evangelical: each has an experiential niche out of which their claims to Anglican identity are made; they speak only for themselves and dare not speak for others. I suppose that this claim is true to an extent. But not in the end.

Are “covenant Anglicans” merely idiosyncratic? Obviously, I came to my own intuitions and finally convictions about this from within the limited context of my own learning. That Anglicanism has not only a common “character” but also a substantive ecclesial and historical profile was something that was deeply impressed upon me from my time at Yale Divinity School, in the midst of a thoroughly interdenominational formation. In the late 1970’s, at any rate, one of the theological disciplines common to our education there was a program through which each student, from whatever tradition he or she came, was rigorously encouraged to discern and analyze differentials and specifics of our particular tradition in an ecumenical context, not just in a local or even national one. That was not easy in a place where Presbyterians and Catholic and Eastern Orthodox and Congregationalists and others were always ready to challenge and subvert presuppositions to exceptionalism on each other’s part, doctrinally and historically. Far more explicitly and demandingly than in the setting of a denominational seminary – it is interesting to see some of the most “provincial” arguments derive from, literally, provincial seminaries — Episcopalians among others were forced to go beyond the catch-phrases of local identity; after all, the UCE was our position of default in Connecticut, and claims to a special “American” character to our Episcopal heritage struck most of our colleagues as rather lame. At any rate, I remember being assigned (by our Lutheran professor in comparative doctrine) a long paper on the 39 Articles, and being pressed to confront the history – pre-Newman – of Catholic re-interpretation of the Articles by the likes of Cosin, Montgomery and Richard Davenport. Certainly, I had to face the elasticity (not “wax nose”) of these founding documents within a reality of common life and mission, and come to grips not simply with the personal theological quirks of their authors but with the substantive realities that genuinely allowed them to think and pray in the ways they did; and the result was to lead me to a search for the deeper way in which Scripture and community functions and asserts itself in our life as Anglicans.

But this kind of peculiar theological education would have been meaningless without its testing and molding by the actual shape of churches called “Anglican” in the world. For the search for a deeper ecclesial identity bore fruit in the face of the lived reality of communion as an interdependent international and trans-cultural fact in my first work as a clergyperson in Africa (Burundi). Whatever the Anglican Communion was, it came to form me deeply according to a range of realities whose character we are now being forced to articulate and confront as a much larger body – theological intuitions, however localized, cannot escape the press of the lived church.

For instance, it was obvious to me that the Anglican Communion meant at least a mutually recognized ministry and sacraments (I was ordained priest in Burundi, with trans-ecclesial permissions—something, I might add, that could not happen today with someone from the Diocese of California, which had sent me); I was allowed and encouraged to teach and form ordinands, even though I was a foreigner from another church, nation, and culture, whose stewardship could be accepted merely on the word of the Episcopal Church. It is almost impossible to imagine such trust today.

But I came to see that the Anglican Communion also moved beyond the common habitation of ecclesial structures. It meant, much further, that I depended in literal and life-providing ways upon my African Anglican brothers and sisters (from food, care when I was seriously ill, political protections in the midst of danger, guidance in the midst of confusion and error), just as they depended on my person, mind, heart, and money. We were one church, obviously, but not without challenge and even sacrifice: to live and work together, we needed to give up defining intellectual categories, habits of thought and reaction, forms of humor, even deep-seated personal commitments of various kinds; give them as a kind of offering for the sake of something more. The “more”, of course, is what is key to begin to understand, even if, at the time, it was not clear.

Again, what I discovered (albeit slowly and also retrospectively even today) was the foundational reality of what I call “formative scripturalism” within the stable community of self-giving believers as the basis for the Body of Christ’s historical energy and life. To read the Scriptures together with the presupposition of their gifted authority on our common life, even when we disagreed in our starting points, to stay in that place of receipt and subject oneself to the ultimate guiding clarity of that Scripture as it worked upon us all together – this proved the purpose of mutually recognized ministries, of common prayer, and the sharing of our hearts and hands, for these things set the parameters of our embrace by the truth of God in Christ, not surely its fullness.

To live in this kind of church was not an interesting feature of cultural choice or habit. It is simply not possible to label this a “niche” reality of a certain kind of Christian “life-style”. It was the assumption underlying being the Church of Christ, even for those who never had the chance of experiencing it in these terms. And it has underlain the life of the Church for centuries. And, far from being idiosyncratic, what I have seen emerging in our churches and Communion most recently is therefore not so much a limited agenda to be achieved to which I happen to be committed in my own personal experience, as much as it represents a confirmation of this intuited grace that I first tasted long ago precisely because I was privileged to live within the larger church itself. And particular elements of this emergent vision, like the Windsor Report, exemplify such a confirmation, not as theological creation, designed by committee under duress, but as the uncovering of a pre-existing reality.

However surprising to many, what has been emerging over the past few years in the Anglican Communion and has now been made bluntly real in the Primates’ meeting, including in the Proposed Covenant – all this is not “new” at all, but rather something only newly articulated and brought to expression. Yet, articulating exactly what? What underlying reality, divine or otherwise is now coming into view, in the Covenant in particular, even if somehow always there?
Steps towards and worries derived from the Covenant

So let me briefly say something about the Covenant’s origins in a practical sense. As most of us know, the proposal for an Anglican Covenant derives almost exclusively from the Windsor Report itself (see e.g. par. 118-120). The proposal came in the context of the Report’s recommendations to enhance the unity of the Anglican Communion: “This Commission recommends, therefore, and urges the primates to consider, the adoption by the churches of the Communion of a common Anglican Covenant which would make explicit and forceful the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between the churches of the Communion” (118). Several things about such a covenant were noted in the Report, and the “draft” of a possible covenant was included in the Report as an appendix and, in a sense, a “discussion-starter”.

When the primates met later at Dromantine (2005) and received the Windsor Report, they affirmed the general idea of an Anglican Covenant (as did Gen. Convention in June, in Resolution A166). In the course of the next year, some initial work, in an ad hoc way, was done by gathering some local people in Britain to think about general aspects one might have to deal with if this idea were to go forward.

The big push for the Covenant came in June ’06 with the appearance of Abp. Rowan Williams’ piece “Challenge and Hope of Being and Anglican Today”. In this essay, disseminated as a general letter to the “faithful” of the Communion, Williams lifted up the idea of a common Anglican Covenant as “the best way forward” for the Communion’s restored integrity and future. He suggested, furthermore, that the Covenant could act as the main element by which the Communion would be ecclesially reordered (into “constituent” and “associate” church membership) through a mechanism by which churches could choose to adopt the Covenant or not.

Although the Covenant idea, first broached by the Windsor Report, had evoked some marginal discussion, it was Williams’ essay that drew out into public debate two major concerns:
i. Some have argued that any Covenant formulated in the present circumstances of the Communion would be the product of conflict and a response to conflict: hence it would inevitably prove a kind of juridical document both limited in its real powers to specific “case” problems of the moment (e.g. sexuality), and would thereby also prove time-constrained (and quickly out of date). Such an attempted solution to disagreement would, in any case, prove impossible within and contradictory of the national/cultural provincial autonomies associated with Anglicanism since the 16th Reformation of the Church of England. A Covenant born of and in response to conflict is therefore neither workable nor desirable. “Communion” rightly refers to “bonds of affection”, which is a deliberately flexible and practically loose reality inimical to formulated and “binding” agreements.

ii. Second, others argued that if the conflict-oriented juridical model were to be avoided, a Covenant would necessarily end up being a “confessional” document. The problems here are at least twofold: either its confessional commitments would be too robust and detailed, and a Covenant would become intrinsically unacceptable to the wide diversity of opinions and practices within the Communion (and hence proves fragmenting in a major way); or these commitments would be so broad that the Covenant’s “comprehensiveness” would become useless definitionally, and would end up simply mimicking the condition of the Communion today as it proves itself incapable of standing for anything evangelically. In any case, Anglicanism (one group says) was never “confessional” in the first place, and a confessional Covenant would be a betrayal of its character.

Rowan Williams’ piece, it needs to be said, attempted to deal with these potential criticisms up front, by describing the juridical and confessional character of Anglicanism as historically explicated by the present demands of communion within the world. It is not enough, he writes, simply to say “we have never done it this way”; rather, one must seek a “way” for today that organizes the historic trust of the church for ongoing life. In this context it is worth citing a very important paragraph from his essay: “There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment. Neither the liberal nor the conservative can simply appeal to a historic identity that doesn’t correspond with where we now are. We do have a distinctive historic tradition – a reformed commitment to the absolute priority of the Bible for deciding doctrine, a catholic loyalty to the sacraments and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, and a habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility that does not seek to close down unexpected questions too quickly. But for this to survive with all its aspects intact, we need closer and more visible formal commitments to each other.” It is clear that Williams didn’t manage to persuade everyone here, but the direction of his thinking is significant.

iii. A third view, however, sought to take up Williams’ discussion positively, and aim it in a certain direction. This perspective argued that an Anglican Covenant would be useful to the degree that it was understood “relationally”, as the expression – lived and real – of how the churches of Anglican Communion “live with one another”. Many saw this as the Windsor Report’s own desire, at least insofar as the Report was received in the subsequent discussions of the Communion, and as it morphed into something called the “Windsor Process”, a reality that implied something less concrete and articulate, or less static and formulaic, and more dynamic and engaged than did the categories of “juridical” and “confessional” appear.

In any case, the Covenant proposal moved forward. A good number of responses to the idea now came in from around Communion (indeed, they had already begun to appear after the Windsor Report’s initial publication). Some were critical of the idea altogether, others were cautiously encouraging of it, others offered general suggestions, and finally some provided fully-tailored proposals. In the Fall of ‘06 a Covenant Design Group of 10 persons was chosen by Abp. Williams, with nominees having been solicited from all the provinces. The members of this group included Primates, clergy, and laypersons, men and women, from around the Communion. They were charged with meeting, reviewing the entire question of the Covenant idea in any way they chose, and reporting to the Primates’ Tanzania meeting in February.

The Design Group met over four days in January of ’07, and from this meeting proceeded a surprising outcome: after one day of intense discussion and prayer, common agreement about a way forward was reached. We agreed, in fact, that an Anglican Covenant was desirable on a certain basis, and that it was doable in terms of its articulation, again, on a certain basis. After another three days of actual drafting, the Design Group wrote a report and a complete draft Covenant that they presented to the Primates. This report and draft was commended by Primates, and it is this document that they have offered to the Communion for discussion and response.

A theology of Covenant: the Already of God’s “Yes”
What theological perspective informed the Design Group’s work? What follows is my own interpretation of that perspective, based on our discussions and on the actual documents we produced and that the Primates themselves articulated.

The last paragraph of the Report’s prologue describes the fundamental working orientation of the group: it states firmly that the Covenant proposal we would offer would not be an “invention”, but a “restatement” and “assertion” of something already “received”, and a “commitment” to an “interdependent life” already (“in theory”) and always “recognized”, that is, a commitment to a kind of life “already lived”. Likewise, the Primates themselves, in the Communiqué (29), speak of the Covenant as a “making explicit” of something already “meant”, and an “articulating” of something already lived.

Here we are given the heart of the Proposed Covenant’s form: something already received, something already lived. And before examining some of the particulars of this “already”, it is important to understand – from my perspective – that this “already” is precisely the meaning of “covenant” in a basic sense, a meaning that provides, I believe, a profound response to the worries originally raised and still held about having an Anglican Covenant at all. For unless we get straight the theological meaning of the “already” in this context, we cannot understand the particulars and their weight within the actual text of the Proposed Covenant itself.
What is a “covenant”? On a basic level, it is simply a promise, made between two or more parties. Within the specifically religious context of the Christian Scriptural faith, however, this promise is bound up with God. But because this promise is bound up with God—the God who names himself as “I am who I am” or “I will be and I will do what I will be and do” (Exod. 3:14) — we are talking not simply about a “content” to a promise, a set of propositions upheld, but with a reality that continues to be and to act. God does not say to Moses, “I believe this and therefore so should you” or “I stand for this and you also must uphold it”, but rather, “I am this and will do this”. God’s “promises”, that is, are actions over time that are joined to God’s very being. When we speak of a “promise” with respect to God, we speak of Someone promising. By the same token, promises made to God and with God are also actions lived out in the course of time and history by particular people.

My point here is that a covenant in Christian terms is about an active way of existing as a person; with respect to “promising” a covenant is, therefore, about “trustworthiness”, a reality that includes character, action, form, and purpose. And this reality takes in not only the keeping of promises, within all the changing situations of life; but also the lived reality of constantly returning to promises made, of reasserting them and (from our human side) of suffering consequences and seeking restoration for falling from our promises. Covenant, from a human side in short designates the action born of faithfulness and of ongoing “conversion”. God is constantly proving trustworthy; and human beings who seek God are constantly renewing their trust, through God’s trustworthy grace, in a process of conversion. This is what makes the reality of covenant something that snags, promotes, re-orients, and molds. Covenant is a subjecting reality across time, that catches up the people involved and sends them somewhere.
The Introduction to the Proposed Covenant makes a strong theological claim, in this regard, one to which Franklin is accurately sensitive in his judgments about the central koinonia thrust of the most recent Primates’ Meeting: the fundamental promise of God is that of “communion”, communion with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ (1 Jn. 1;3); a communion that is based on God’s “faithful calling” (1 Cor. 1:9). This communion or fellowship is the promise – the calling – and it is trustworthy, because God is ‘faithful”. Furthermore, this trustworthy promise of communion is at the foundation of all of God’s purposes, for God’s good will and pleasure is to “gather all things in heaven and on earth” together in in Christ (Eph. 1:9f.).

The reality of covenant therefore derives from this communion purpose: the fundamental trustworthiness of our lives as Christians flows out of the very promises of God, that is, God’s faithfulness in calling us into communion with Him. When Jesus says, “let your yes be yes and your no be no” (Mt. 5:37), he is reflecting the reality that our word – our life lived according to our will’s desire – flow out of the “yes” that is God’s promise to us: “For the son of God, Jesus Christ who was preached among you by us, was not yes and no, but in him there was only yes, for all the promises of God in him are yes” (2 Cor. 1:19).

This may seem very abstract. 2 Corinthians 1:19 was in fact the base verse that informed the entire Anglican-Roman Catholic Agreed Statement on Authority (The Gift of Authority). At the time, a guiding appeal to this Scripture verse seemed to many people unclear in the context of discussions of authority in general. But perhaps the implications of God’s positive promises, fulfilled in Jesus, have now found a more palpable ecclesial setting in which to illuminate our lives as churches. For in the reality of covenanting that has been proposed to the Anglican Communion, we can grasp more clearly how the exercise of “authority” does indeed enact the “Yes” of God: authority is embodied in our trustworthy words, words that always respond to God’s own faithful promises.

For the “already” that is implied in the Proposed Covenant is precisely the already of God’s promises, of what God has done and is doing, of the “Yes” God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ, his Son, and in the utter trustworthiness and faithfulness of this. And what is this Yes, what is this promise, what is the very act by which the promise is not only upheld but takes its flesh within the world and its time? Is it not this: that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for it (Jn. 3:16)? That this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and gave his Son for us as a sacrifice? (1 Jn. 4:7,10). Is this not the Yes to the promise of communion that God has made? What then, in this light, is a “covenant”, a promise, a trustworthy response to this “already” that is God’s? We must answer this question clearly for ourselves, for our discernment, decision-making, and lively discipleship as churches take their proper form only in this responsive posture and set of practices.

I had occasion recently to sit with a group of clergy in another diocese who were listing on a board what “communion” has meant within Anglicanism. It is not a difficult task or even a long list, much as I began earlier to describe my first ministry in Burundi: shared mutually recognized ministries and shared sacrament. But does this come close to describing the fullness of “communion”? It certainly does not explicate “communion” in the sense of the Anglican Communion’s fullness of life together, because mutually recognized ministries and shared sacraments are things we already share with other denominations, like the Lutherans and Moravians, and probably soon the Methodists. We may call these relationships “full communion”, but they are nothing of the sort. For if you were to push on in speaking about the communion of Anglicans, you would have to add more things: shared counsel, for instance (something realty held with Lutherans); shared money in a regular and committed fashion– here you are going even more deep (and money is always the mark of true communion!). Where is this heading? Is it not heading in the direction of what we might call “offering”, even “sacrifice”? The offering finally and even of our very lives? “Greater love has no one than this, that a man should lie down his life ” for his friends (Jn. 15:13), and I have called you friends (14), and, of course, “love one another as I have loved you” (13:34).

This is where communion leads. It leads to the laying down of life – this is, after all, the very shape and reality of God’s “Yes”. Nothing else. And the communion of the Anglican Communion is precisely that her members have said “yes” to this reality amongst ourselves. That is the profoundly missionary reality of communion, and I submit that it is precisely why and how Africans among others, have reacted so strongly within the present turmoil – they are bound to the missionary martyrs and confessors of their founding and foundation, both foreign and indigenous, and it is this “Yes”, this promise, this trust and trustworthiness – the “already” of their history and blood-line — that is their life. Because God’s trustworthiness – according to John (1Jn. 1:3) – is enacted, is lived out, in the reality of the world’s history, and in the Church’s history, in terms of a “communion” or “fellowship’ among Jesus’ followers, that communion is “full” and complete and integral only to the degree that it “goes and loves to the end” (Jn 13:1f.). This is why all covenants are “sealed with blood” (cf. Heb. 9[:18]).

So we can define covenant in this way: it is “relational” to the degree that it expresses the self-giving of God’s promising, the historical reality that “at the very time we were sinners, God demonstrated his love for us by His own Son’s death” (Rom 5:8) – this is what God does to and for and with us in time; it is “juridical”, in that it expresses the Law of God’s promising, the “commandment” of loving as God loves in His son’s own self-giving (Jn. 15:10ff.); it is “confessional” in that it articulates precisely this love – this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son – and hence it lays out the very contours of our belief, as John himself writes, that the “message” and “confession” of Jesus coming in the flesh (cf. 1 Jn 1:5; 4:3) is at the heart of communion (2 Jn. 1:7ff.). All dogma is contained herein.
And covenant is “expressive” of an already rather than “inventive” of something new, because it is in all these aspects simply — ! – a saying “Yes” to what God has already been saying “Yes“ to from the foundation of the world in the mystery of His purposes. If there is anything “new” involved, it is in the “conversion” of our lives, over and over again, like Israel, to God’s promise and promising that has given us life (cf. Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10).

To covenant with one another, therefore, cannot possibly contradict Anglicanism. Otherwise it contradicts God himself. I cannot put it more strongly. Any canonical law, any provincial property, any theological program can only bow before this fundamental reality. That does not speak to particulars, but it does speak to what we are about.

We should also note in this light how any covenant ought therefore properly to function. I mention this, in particular, in response to those criticisms that the Proposed Covenant is too “bland” and has no “teeth”. The active character of any covenant is, as I have said, “trustworthiness”; it is about keeping promises. The notion of “teeth” is, in a sense, ill-suited to such a context. Obviously, there are consequences to promise-breaking. The main consequence is a loss of trust – something that the Primates themselves spoke to in their Communiqué (9), following the Windsor Report, as the “illness” that has infected the Communion. And with a loss of trust comes a host of other consequences. But you cannot “make” people either enter into promises or “make” people keep them. One can only acknowledge promise-keeping and promise-breaking, and live with the outcome of their choices, where trust has either strengthened a life together or its loss has torn it apart. The consequence of all good is the fruit of righteousness; the consequence of all evil the envelopment by the sinner of sin itself.
A key question in this regard, and one that is more limited, that some have raised is this: would the Proposed Covenant (or any other version of a covenant) in and of itself have prevented the current “illness”, if you will? Certainly, it would not have done so in the sense that no covenant can prevent people from breaking their word, in one way or another. A mechanism of the imposition of “sanctions” within a covenant makes of it no longer a covenant; and furthermore, sanctions themselves do not beget a change of will or engender trustworthiness. It is true that the Windsor Report made it clear that a covenant was in fact needed in order to avoid future “crippling” conflicts. But how did they mean this? What a covenant can do is to make explicit that to which one is committed, and to which one makes a promise and to the character of that promise, and therefore the character of the consequences to be expected if promises are broken. Here, I think, the Proposed Covenant is clear enough, and fair enough, both positively and negatively (as section 6 spells it out). When covenants are made and then broken – and this the Proposed Covenant describes – the fruit and reality of trustworthiness and the conversion to which it leads are squandered and slip into the waters of isolated drift. The Covenant provides a way of describing this and articulating – judging – when this has taken place. To this degree, it lays out a method of adjudication.

Finally, we can see how, in light of the trustworthy promising of covenant that binds communion, the actual “content” of a covenant, at least as I have outlined its meaning, cannot be primarily propositional, although it is full of implications that can indeed be put in propositional form (although that is the task for bishops, pastors, and catechists). Rather the content of the Covenant has to do with articulating a way of embodying the truth of God’s promises and of our Yes to them. The question is not first of all “can a liberal or a conservative sign on to this set of doctrines”—and thereby, can we test whether the doctrines are orthodox or progressive or this or that. Rather the question is “can this church keep its word in its life in communion as it says ‘yes’ to the gift of God’s own life given in the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, that is to God’s actual love?”

The shape of the Proposed Covenant
So let us return to the Proposed Covenant itself. It is meant, as I have argued, to be expressive of a reality “already” present. And therefore, the Design Group adopted (informally and often implicitly) two principles to govern our deliberations and drafting: first, that nothing should be formalized that was not already at work – either doctrinally, missionally, or structurally – in our common life as a whole; and second, that the very formulations of these articulated realities should be drawn from existing documents within the public realm of the Anglican Communion, either in a longstanding fashion, or more recently. These adopted principles are the major reason why it was possible to formulate something in what surprised many people as being a remarkably, and in some minds unadvisedly, quick fashion. It is important to understand this, practically and in terms of the theological basis for it, as I have explained it, so as not to misjudge the meaning of the Design Group’s expeditious labors.

The way this worked concretely can be categorized as follows:
a. The general template for the draft was an existing proposal, carefully composed over the previous year by representatives of the Global South. It had been circulated publicly for some months, and to this we added elements of the Windsor Report’s Appendix and the Province of Australia’s publicly disseminated Covenant proposal.
b. The actual content of the proposal – its specific elements and their formulation — made use of a range of material, including the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, constitutions of various provincial churches, Lambeth Conference resolutions, Communion commissions (cf. the section on Mission), Primates’ statements, etc..
c. As for the ecclesial structures and order proposed for discernment and decision-making, we made an attempt to articulate what has, in an ad hoc way, already emerged in our common life over the past few years. This is key, especially in Section 6 of the proposal which deals with an ordered process of conciliar life that gives the Primates a particular role. This proposed structure and order is not an invention at all, as some have claimed, but an attempt to lay out how in fact (and with responsible deliberation, to be sure) affairs have been sorting themselves out. One can read Section 6 as a “history” of the last decade of the Anglican Communion’s life in counsel. This history, and its encompassing larger history, of the Anglican Communion as a whole, is, we believe, “providential”, in that it marks the articulation in time of God’s promising act. If one cannot accept this, then of course one will have a problem with the thrust of this aspect of the document as a whole. But we believe it is consistent with the very reality of what covenant is all about: God proves faithful, and our attempts, marked by repeated conversionary movements of our councils, at responding in faith embody the shape of our own growing faithfulness.

It is possible, from this vantage finally, to touch on the particulars of the Proposed covenant now only briefly, in large measure because, as I have been arguing, they are not controversial precisely in their status as “already” given and passed on. They represent a remarkable convergence of Global South ways of articulating their commitments and more Western ones, for they articulate the common spring.

There are three main topics (somewhat obscured by a faulty enumeration in the text): which could be denoted in terms of teaching, mission, and order. Each of these topics is subdivided in terms of “affirmation” and “commitment”.

i. Thus, Section 2, “the life we share”, follows an affirmation of the Quadrilateral, elaborated by the addition of an affirmation of common mission and of the foundational and guiding place of the classical “Anglican formularies (the latter of which is a part of the constitutions of a large number of provinces in the Anglican Communion). These are not listed here so as to establish a renewed Protestant confessionalism so much as they are forthrightly acknowledged as a historically accepted standard for common discernment and order, particularly with respect to the Scriptures.

On the “commitment” side of this topic, several elements are listed that range from engagement with Scripture and its authority, moral teaching, Eucharistic fellowship, leadership formation, and common life. These phrases derive from Lambeth conferences, ecumenical dialogue statements (cf. that on morals), the Windsor Report, and other sources. In many ways, this is a crucial section that cannot afford to be overlooked, for, with its earlier set of affirmations, it actually provides a framework within which the discernment of truth is to take place with the Communion, and provides a set of touchstones by which that discernment is to be measured. It is not as if the presenting quarrel over sexuality could be immediately settled within such a framework; but it would, I believe, have altered the way such a quarrel was approached some time ago had the framework been explicitly embraced. One will note, for instance, that the oft-appealed to (and only locally embraced anyway) triad of “Scripture, Tradition, and Reason”, so confusing to so many in practice, does not appear here, not because its elements are not in fact in play, but because they are ordered within a more focused trajectory of discernment and authority.

ii. The next section (4) on shared life and vocation, contains within it both the affirmation and commitment aspects of the church’s missionary existence. Here, a providential understanding of the growth of the Anglican Communion as a communion is affirmed – obviously a central claim for a notion of an Anglican Covenant to make any sense at all; and through it, the historical characteristics of the previous teaching framework are filled out on a large canvass: primitive undivided church, British origins, Reformation, and global growth through mission. This providential history was carefully noted, and its markers listed here are meant to inform the previous sections’ “confessional” affirmations and commitments.
Much of the rest of the section, along with the list of commitments, derives from existing work by e.g. the Inter-Anglican Study Commission on Mission and Evangelism, and other groups. The ecumenical context for the Communion’s mission is also straightforwardly affirmed, a fact that deserves attention.

iv. The last set of affirmations and commitments – on Unity and Common life – have already proved the most controversial. The first section basically lays out the Four Instruments of Communion (the Archbishop of Canterbury having been restored to this position!), all under a guiding affirmation of our Communion’s episcopal leadership (something coherent with our own Prayer Book’s ordination liturgy, not to mention the Quadrilateral). By and large, the descriptions of the Instruments of Unity derive from existing proposals, especially Australia’s (which, in turn, derives from other sources). The attempt here is to render somewhat more coherent the particular roles of each Instrument as they function together. There has already been some concern expressed that the ACC’s role has somehow been slighted; however, we believe that the descriptions given are accurate, fair, and finally helpfully integrated.
The real place of challenge for many, it appears, lies in Section 6 on the practical elements that a commitment to unity would demand. In some sense, this was the one section where the Design Group was required to write “from scratch”. But, as I have emphasized earlier, that would finally be a misleading characterization of what we did; for our goal was to articulate “explicitly”, as the Primates themselves said, what has in fact taken place in practice already over the past few years as the Anglican Communion has grown and faced challenges to its common witness. Our task was one of apprehending this reality, not constructing it. If one looks carefully at the order of discernment, counsel, and decision, one will see a process that matches fairly closely with actual workings of the Communion over the past decade, say, with the dispute over sexuality – from Lambeth’98 (and before, of course), through to the Primates response to General Convention ’03, the Lambeth Commission, Primates, Canterbury and ACC responses, General Convention ’06 and now Dar es Salaam.

While this process has been challenged by some as to its integrity, one of the major sources of anxiety over the past few years has less been the actual incoherence of decision-making as has the fact that this ad hoc process was, as it were, unknown in advance, and hence in itself difficult to “trust”, to find “trustworthy”. What covenanting does to this is to resolve that need, and thereby provide a common “Yes” to a way of discerning that will indeed make “time” and patience less a threat to stability, but a gift for seeking the truth in love. “We know what we have committed ourselves to, of the path it must follow, and we will be faithful in following it together.”

We are well aware, of course, that just this ordering of discernment is disputed as being somehow providential. Why, some are already asking, should the Primates be given the role of the party of appeal and the final gateway of decision-making? There are at least three answers one might give to this perfectly valid question. First, there is a practical response: someone must do this, and of all the Instruments of Unity, the Primates most effectively (in logistical terms) combine world-wide representation and coherence of council. Second, there is the response of deliberate precedence: Lambeth ’98 (building on ’88) requested that the Primates take on this role quite explicitly (Res. III.6), by “intervening in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces”; and this request derives from actual attempts in other cases where the Instruments of Unity did in fact intervene (e.g. the first Lambeth Conference, and, more recently, Canterbury’s intervention – upheld by the ACC – in Rwanda in the mid-‘90’s). Finally, there is the simple ecclesiological response: given the episcopal ordering and leading of the Anglican Church – and, despite claims to American exceptionalism here, it is enshrined in our own Prayer Book (cf. pp. 517f.) – the Primates represent, in themselves, the unity affirmed and upheld – the “yes” of the Communion – to which the Covenant itself witnesses.

This does not mean that the Primates should or would constitute some super-decision-making power, a “curia” for the Communion as some of claimed. Far from it. A careful examination of the process of discernment proposed in the Covenant makes clear the conciliar character within which the Primates would operate in a special manner in limited and exceptional circumstances. And it is this conciliar context and character, as well as their representative and episcopal roles, that distinguish the Primates’ exceptional calling from curial models of decision-making and authority.

Although there have been fears and indeed accusations that the Primates have been “maneuvered” and “manipulated” over the past few years, I believe that an even-handed examination of the actual history of our struggles will show that, despite the real passion and heat in these struggles (some of it coming from the Primates themselves), there has been a remarkable restraint and subtlety to the Primates’ own decision-making – one that actually reflects, rather than imposes upon, the diversity and discernment of the larger Communion. The Proposed Covenant merely seeks to give speech to this deeper reality.

It is the task of the Communion, through its varied processes of discussion, to comment not only on this larger shape to the Proposed Covenant, but also to the particulars that provide its content. My hope here is to have shown how both this larger shape finds its contours within a specific theological vision; and that this vision is what should inform the particulars as they are articulated.

Concluding directions
The Primates themselves have commended the Proposed Covenant for study and response within the Communion as a whole. In doing so, they have responded to the Report’s request that they affirm the draft as a “concise expression of what may be considered as authentic Anglicanism”. This is a significant action, and signals that the Proposed Covenant in its general aim, at least, is not off the mark.

On the basis of comments received through the course of this year, the Covenant Design Group will prepare a revised draft to be presented to Lambeth ’08, where it may be considered – and probably amended – for dissemination to the Provinces of the Communion. This process and timetable is important, among other things, for the way that it provides the markers for the “interim” recommendations offered by the Primates in their Communiqué.

I want to end simply by citing some words from William Franklin’s article, with which I began: “contrary to inaccurate press reports of this past week that the holy See seeks some accommodation with disaffected Anglicans, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity at the Vatican has now spoken of the value of the Anglican Communion remaining as one communion, as indicated in this statement: ‘It is our overwhelming desire that the Anglican Communion stays together, rooted in the historic faith which our dialogue and relations over four decades have led us to believe that we share to a large degree’” [a 2004 statement republished by the Catholic Church in a recent official summary of dialogue statements]. And I would ask, Why would Rome desire such a thing? What hope does this express that, to a large extent, we are party to, driven by, and nourished in? Is it not the hope that God’s promises are indeed shown forth before the world as being trustworthy? Not that the Anglican Communion is the single, or even primary vehicle for that demonstration; hardly – is has a calling only in relation to others. But rather, do we not all recognize that, “in a world and time of instability, conflict, and fragmentation” (Proposed Covenant Introduction), this demonstration must come and be received in the places of our failures, of our “no’s”, of this church and that church, of this communion, if ever we are one day to say “yes” to the great calling of our God in Christ Jesus to bring us into the Father’s bosom as ‘one flock with one shepherd” (Jn. 10:6)?

–The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner is rector of Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado, and a fellow of the Anglican Communion Institute

Craig Uffman Nails It! His Analysis of the "Gang of Four" Committee Report

Kendall Harmon posted the following piece over at T-1-9. I think when the dust settles, and the realignment crowd has exhausted its rant, this article will stand above the rest as the most reasonable analysis. Well said, Mr. Uffman.

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Craig Uffman–In Defense of Rowan Williams: An Alternative Explanation for the Infamous Gang of Four Committee Report

Emotions ranging from grief to nearly hysterical anger characterize the response of orthodox Anglicans to the report of the committee tasked with monitoring the response of The Episcopal Church (TEC) to the Windsor Report. The committee report concludes that TEC responded sufficiently to two out of the three demands of the Windsor Report. Archbishop Aspinall of Australia summarized the conclusion succinctly, “Two out of three requirements were met, but more work is needed.” But in the eyes of the orthodox and liberals alike, the report gives TEC a clean bill of health.

The most common target of orthodox outrage is Archbishop Rowan Williams, whose name is on the report. “He sold us out!” claim some. “His greatest moment of shame!” declare others.
However, those who know ++Rowan’s work and character find those claims difficult to accept. There must be some other explanation. I believe that explanation can be summarized in one word: “overaccepting.”

Overaccepting is a term popularized by Rev. Canon Dr. Sam Wells (dean of the Duke Chapel and Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School) in his book, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos and London: SPCK, 2004). Wells looks to the genre of improvisation in the theatre to describe the kind of ethical behavior for which disciples should be trained. In improvisation, the most important goal of actors is to keep the play going. No matter what kind of outrageous behavior one improv actor “offers,” her colleagues must respond in such a way that continuity with her actions is maintained so that the drama continues. In other words, their response must not “block” the “offer” of the colleague or the drama stops.

Wells explains that a good improvisationist always “accepts” the offer of the colleague in order to keep the action going. Indeed, they “over-accept” it by receiving that which is offered and then re-direct the action in a way continuous with the offer but perhaps oriented in a different direction. Those familiar with the TV series, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” are familiar with this pattern.

Wells shows that “overaccepting” is the way of Christ. I’ll refer those interested in that proof to the book. But Wells’ key point is that Christian actors improvise by overaccepting the offers of others in such a way that the action is reoriented in the Way of Christ. When offering pastoral care, a Christian actor overaccepts in order to help the lost re-locate themselves rightly in God’s drama.

I propose that the best way to understand Rowan Williams’ role in the committee report is through the lens of “overaccepting.” As the orthodox claim loudly, the “offer” made by TEC was plainly unsuitable in that it fell short of the requested language of repentance and promises to cease the behaviors that tore the bonds of affection. Rather than “blocking” that response by rejecting it and ending the conversation with TEC, ++Rowan continued the action by “overaccepting” the offer and redirecting the action in such a way that TEC must relocate themselves rightly in God’s drama. That is, ++Rowan accepts as satisfactory the feeble response of TEC, but reinterprets it in such a way that TEC commits itself to cessation of the offensive behavior. TEC is thus offered the opportunity to continue the story along a direction it did not expect, or to stop the drama.

I suggest that “overaccepting” more adequately explains ++Rowan’s role in the committee report than claims of perfidy. By overaccepting TEC’s offer, he continues the conversation so that TEC may remain in the Anglican drama at least until the covenant offers the opportunity for voluntary and peaceable re-structuring of the communion. Overaccepting thus redirects the drama, in spite of TEC’s communion-tearing actions, in the direction of unity. And focus on unity is consistent with ++Rowans’ theology, character, and the office entrusted to him. As Wells demonstrates, although it is often frustrating behavior to those of us who long for a martial conqueror, overaccepting is the way of Christ.

–Mr. Craig Uffman is an Anglican who resides in Raleigh, NC, and is a student at Duke Divinity School

Weather Report from Britain

I really miss English weather. Really, I do. It's not just the oppressive heat of Texas summers that gets me down; it's the fact that only the Brits know how to report on the weather with a little "class." Have a listen to this SAMPLE.

P.S. My friend, Jeff Steel in Durham, England, gets to wake up to this every morning. Imagine that! ;-)