Posted on 03/17/2004 10:36:56 AM PST by ahadams2
For Immediate Release March 16, 2004
Contact:
Cynthia P. Brust 202-296-5360 202-412-8721
BISHOP DUNCAN OFFERS SUPPORT FOR OHIO CONFIRMANDS: House of Bishops meeting can help resolve issue
Bishop Robert Duncan, Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, offered his support today to the 110 Ohio Episcopalians confirmed by five senior American Bishops and one Brazilian Bishop on March 14, 2004.
“I pray for those newly confirmed and for the congregations from which they were presented. I also pray for the retiring Bishop of Ohio and for the Bishop-elect that they might respond with grace to the canonical irregularities with which they now find themselves confronted,” said Bishop Duncan.
“The joint confirmation service, organized by Episcopalians from five congregations and the members of one Anglican fellowship, was brought about by the failure of the Episcopal Church to provide Adequate Episcopal Oversight for orthodox minorities in revisionist dioceses,” added Duncan.
According to Duncan, the Anglican Communion Network has rejected as unworkable the Presiding Bishop’s plan for Supplemental Pastoral Care as incompatible with the intent of the Primate’s October 16, 2003 statement. The statement called on the Episcopal Church “to make adequate provision for episcopal oversight of dissenting minorities within their own area of pastoral care in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the Primates.”
“The current plan just doesn’t do that,” said Duncan.
Duncan hopes that he and the other bishops who will be representing the Anglican Communion Network at the March 19-24, 2004 House of Bishops meeting will be able to help the national Episcopal Church defuse the current crisis. “We’ll be working to find a realistic way forward,” he said, “one that gives orthodox Episcopalians a way to stay within our church.”
The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, commonly known as the Anglican Communion Network, represents Episcopalians of 12 dioceses and six regional convocations as well as thousands of individual Episcopalians from all over the United States committed to being a biblically-driven mission movement within the Episcopal Church. Primates, representing more than two-thirds of the world’s 60 million active Anglicans, have voiced public support for the Network.
Sorry, Bob, but the Ohio action is not going to do that -- it's going to harden the revisionist's positions, and it gives them a reasonable argument that the Network's real goal is to replace the current church.
Hopefully Grant didn't say that just prior to Cold Harbor.... which is what comes to mind when I give this thing more thought.
There's doing things, and there's doing stupid things. The more I think about it, the dumber this Ohio move seems to be. It's a move clearly designed to force Griwold's hand -- and as such, it appears to be much more a political move than it is a religious one. The problem is, Griswold is the one holding all of the power here.
I think the primary fallout will be the destruction of six orthodox parishes.
And then there's Bob Duncan. His expression of support for this move, just prior to an HOB meeting, pretty much ensures that he'll face a united front of revisionists who can, with reasonable justification, say that the Network is a schismatic entity after all. He'll get nothing from this meeting, and his talk of "getting along within the church" can be dismissed as CYA. And so hopes of reforming the ECUSA from within are diminished by prideful and impatient action.
Sorry, but on this one I think we've really shot ourselves in the foot.
A confrontation is inevitable and for whatever reason the minority is playing their hand. I assume they have a few more cards that have yet to be played. My guess is this same arrangement is going to be repeated a few more times in order to get the reaction that you fear. My guess is this group fully expects reaction and further has its next moves in order.
What makes you think they have? When I look at some of those bishops involved (Bps. Allison and Wantland, for example), I see a group of guys whose track record in matters like this is not particularly impressive, primarily because they're prone to impatient and ill-considered action.
This is the bane of conservatives, religious or otherwise. Whereas the liberals work patiently and incrementally over decades, we tend to hope for one big battle, and we tend to believe (mistakenly) that we have the power to choose the field.
You're probably correct in your guess as to the goals of these sorts of actions. But the real question is: after they get the sort of reaction I'm predicting, what do these guys hope to gain from it? They still won't have a legal leg to stand on, which is really unfortunate, since the field they're going to end up fighting on will involve lawyers and judges.
If you take the long view of this, there's really no way to "stay in the church" if you do things like this. All it does is allow Griswold and his trolls to defeat the orthodox parishes in dribs and drabs. They'll win every time.
I really don't think they've really thought this through.
There is ussually a key premise that differs when people are in disagreement and this statement of yours is where we differ.
As the situtation now stands, there is Church to "stay in the church" in. Its been cut off when they could not agree on the resolution to restate what they believe in. The real damage in August was from the voting down of the Quincy resolution. The current ECSUA church is an illusion. It is a cut flower that may look fresh but its dead.
That's an excellent observation. I think we need to look at this from a number of levels to see what the situation really is.
(As an aside, the beginnings of the Anglican church were primarily a response to the bad side of Papal authority. Our present difficulties show that the idea of Papal authority isn't necessarily all bad.... There may be an interesting parallel here between Israel's first king, and Christianity's greatest apostle, who were both called "Saul.")
First, you need to consider the situation from the perspective of within our Province of the Communion (i.e., the Episcopal Church), which is where your comment on the House of Bishops has meaning. If we try to fight on their terms -- which are essentially Democrat-political -- then there's no way to reform internally without gaining a majority in the HOB. That can happen two ways: by taking the long view and slowly converting the Episcopal Church back to orthodoxy; or (short term) by making it impossible for the revisionist bishops to vote in the HOB. The latter option is highly unlikely, if we restrict our viewpoint to within the ECUSA.
Next, you have to consider this from the perspective of the Anglican Communion, of which the ECUSA is merely one of 38 different provinces. The Communion has very little in the way of formal power, but it does have the power to deny things like invitations to, and voice and vote in, Communion councils. It is also possible to excommunicate a Province (I think the Abps of Canterbury and York have to agree to do so). The whole thing hangs on the assumption that the individual Provinces, and the bishops within them, care about remaining in the Communion, and thus care about having voice and vote. If we suppose that a Province or bishop does care about it, then the threat of loss of voice and vote will be sufficient to keep them in line, or lead them to recantation should they cross the line.
This very threat is hanging out there for the bishops who voted for Gene Robinson, though it has not yet been applied. At present there is no indication that the revisionists really care about it, but perhaps they will if the threat ever becomes reality.
There's also a grey area -- if the Communion decides to remove voice and vote from the bishops who approved of Gene Robinson, do those bishops have any authority within the ECUSA? Maybe not. And if not, then the balance of the HOB changes overnight and, for the short term, the ECUSA will have a nominally orthodox leadership. (Seeing as how orthodoxy tends to be very short-sighted, the long-term prospects are problematic....) Or, alternatively, a majority of the HOB can recant on Gene Robinson and same-sex blessings, and the situation is again defused -- always keeping in mind that later apostasy would have to be handled the same way (but probably wouldn't until another big crisis came).
So that's a rough overview of the "reform from within" situation.
The other side of the coin, which is where the Ohio actions belong, is that there's also the possibility that the ECUSA will not reform, regardless of what the rest of the Communion decides. At that point, either the ECUSA is formally excommunicated, and a new province put in place; or the Communion decides to institute a parallel province, which is really something that needs to be avoided. In neither case, however, will the ECUSA be reformed. The only alternatives for orthodoxy are to stay, and leave the Communion, or to leave the ECUSA in order to remain in the Communion -- which is what Bp. Duncan says he doesn't want to do.
If that's correct, then Bob Duncan needs to stop talking about "staying in," because it makes him either a fool or a liar.
My complaint here is not your assessment about the state of the ECUSA, but that people like Bob Duncan, Fitz Allison, et al, appear not to have a consistent intellectual grasp of what they're saying. Their actions and their words are in conflict, and the result is chaos.
The way I read the situation is that Duncan and others have decided to take the route of dual membership. Christ was a roman citizen and a jew. The network is a member of both the ECUSA AND the network. I am a member of accounting societies, a member of Rotary and in all probability I will be a member of two churches before the year is out. This doesn't make me a liar.
That's just the point -- actions like this play out as a choice between being a member of ECUSA OR the Network. As I've said before, this thing smacks of impatience. There may come a time where the dual-membership approach will work, but the groundwork for that hasn't been laid yet!
It's fine to talk about "staying in," but for that to mean anything, the actions have to match the talk. If Duncan thinks his actions do match his talk, then he's clearly not got a grasp of what's going on. OTOH, if he's aware that his actions don't match his talk, then he's a liar.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, "'He will command his angels concerning you,'and "'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"
(Matt. 4:5-10)
The conundrum is, have the Ohio guys fallen prey to the second temptation, and tossed themselves from the top of the temple? Or have they avoided the the third temptation (idolatry), regardless of the cost?
Similarly: in my opposition, am I avoiding the second temptation? Or am I falling prey to the third?
Finally, doesn't it seem likely that we've all fallen afoul of the first temptation, which is to rely on our own actions and desires, rather than to trust God?
It's difficult.
In a similar fashion I wrestle with dual membership in my work as an accountant and my member of a church. My Church and Christ sometimes requires a response from me that is at odd's with my responsibility to my clients. I have to choose sometimes to respond in a way that places one membership above the other.
Christ was asked which of his memberships was first and we know he dodged that. For members of the network to conclude that an emergency action is called for by the duty of one membership over the duty of the other is a conflict but its no different than the other conflicts we deal with in all things.
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