Still more from Robert Munday

John, you responded to my citation of the Lambeth Conference of 1998, which in Resolution 1.10, “reject[ed] homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture” by saying “Integrity has worked for years to change the biblical interpretation of the scriptures used to discriminate against homosexuals.” This effort at changing the interpretation of Scripture is at the root of our disagreement–which is a major disagreement because it is a divergence of theological worldviews.

By the way, Louie Crew does a fine job of documenting the push I was talking about in his article “Changing the Church” http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/gayhist.htm. In the very first sentence of the article, Louie touches on the real heart of the matter dividing Anglicans from each other when he mentions that “women and lesbigays have organized to promote a more egalitarian and inclusive spirituality.” Now egalitarian and inclusive are fine words; but what they stand for in this case is a spirituality that includes the efforts at changing the interpretation of Scripture, and it also includes the various efforts aimed at “reimaging God,” which goes hand in hand with the effort to legitimize same sex relationships as a part of radical, feminist and liberation theologies. Here I am using “radical,” not pejoratively, but in its literal sense of “at the root.” Those who embrace these theologies are bent on redefining Christianity at the root.

The issue is not merely one of sex or sexual behavior or expression. The issues of sexuality only serve as occasions for discovering how deep our theological differences really are. Elizabeth Kaeton made the point quite well in her message with the subject, ‘the myth of common prayer’ (March 14, 2005) when she says: “Not only do we have different ways of interpreting scripture, here’s the truth of it, straight away: We do not worship the same images of God.” Elizabeth gave a very good summary of the nature of our disagreement, and I hope she publishes it as an article. Elizabeth hits it right on the head: Lex orandi, lex credendi–the law of prayer is the law of belief. We pray differently and so we believe differently. Just wait until we try to draft a new Prayer Book, and all this will become painfully apparent.

So the question is not whether Anglicans who are divided on issues of sexuality can achieve reconciliation or accommodate each other. It is whether people who pray to different images of God can co-exist in the same Church. Can people whose theological understanding comes from radical feminist and liberation theologies co-exist with people who adhere to historic evangelical and catholic theologies?

Finally, John, you ask the crucial question: “I ask you this, is this issue big enough to destroy the EC?” I think that is a question history is going to have to answer. I certainly don’t advocate the destruction of the Episcopal Church, but I also don’t see any way of reconciling two such disparate theological worldviews. The solution, if it is not to involve theological compromise, will have to involve political compromise, such as, but not limited to: (1) allowing the rest of the Communion to adjudicate which position they recognize as “Anglican,” (2) some sort of amicable divorce that respects both sides enough to include division of the property, pension fund, trust funds, and other assets, or (3) a form of alternative episcopal oversight that is deemed adequate by those who are requesting it and not merely by those who are allowing it (or, more to the point, NOT allowing it). And here I think Bishop Duncan is to be commended. If those on the liberal side had been as generous as Bishop Duncan has been in allowing DEPO, we wouldn’t be watching the disintegration that is happening in many places.

The author of this piece says that Elizabeth Kaeton hits the nail on the head when she says that "“Not only do we have different ways of interpreting scripture, here’s the truth of it, straight away: We do not worship the same images of God." and goes on to talk about lex orandi, lex credendi. I'd have thought that her comment was just about the most obvious thing in this entire situation. There is nothing even remotely profound in what she says and it should have been obvious when ECUSA refused to declare Pike a heretic decades ago. Do any people still in communion with ECUSA realize how incredibly silly and pretentious they look when "good" Episcopalians hang "Christa" on the wall of their cathedral, develop "women's liturgies", lionize, or at least refuse to anathematize bishops who deny the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection or applaud the recent comments of that man Robinson in personna episcopi praising an organized baby killing outfit like Planned Parenthood (let alone consecrating him in the first place)? Why didn't it occur to the vast run of good Episcopalians that something was very rotten in their ecclesial assembly 30 years ago, that just perhaps their bishops were worshiping a different "god" than they were?

The author here suggests three possibilities, two of which presuppose remaining in communion with the ECUSA bishops. That's simply absurd and if the author really believes in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, then his suggestions evince a level of spiritual cowardice or perhaps even prevarication which is worthy of condemnation. To tell you the truth, I don't think he believes in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I think he believes in something else which shed any claim to being part of The Church when it began making doctrinal compromises among its member parishes decades, maybe hundreds of years ago. That is the only possible explanation for this fetish about preserving communion with people who are either clearly not Christians or at best, such a theologically "diverse" group of "Christians" that one really can't know what they believe in. It goes far beyond lex orandi lex credendi!

I have posted here before the comments of +John Chrysostomos that no only heretics, but those who are in communion with them are enemies of God; of St. Theodore the Studite who warned that communion with heretics was poison for the soul; of the 7th Ecumenical Council declaring Anathema on those who will not anathematize heretics; of +Maximos the Confessor who declared that he would break communion with a patriarch with whom the whole universe had communion should that patriarch venture to preach a another gospel, a new teaching. The list could go on and on. None of them ever believed that the unity of the Church was more important than doctrinal Orthodoxy, the protestations of the ECUSA revisionists to the contrary notwithstanding. These Fathers are the Fathers honored by The Church of which the Anglican Communion claims to be a part, whose writings pre exist the establishment of the Anglican Church. Why the apparent refusal of so many to follow what the Fathers have written, unless these people, these Episcopalians, really don't believe what the Fathers taught? If that is so, fine, but to presume to call one selves members of The Church at the same time is disingenuous at best and to condemn others, like Louie Crew, for proclaiming a different faith when in fact that is exactly what they themselves have done is more than simply unfair.

Time and again in the history of the Church this has happened, especially in the East and it is by excising the heresy and the heretics, many times in fact under the leadership of the Pope of Rome, that Orthodox Christianity has been preserved. Rome can claim the same thing in the West. Indeed, as we all know, Rome and the Orthodox East did precisely this to each other; we even tried to create a phony reunion, the False Union of Florence in the 1450s, which was finally consigned to an ecclesial dustbin through the efforts of St. Mark of Ephesus. But the door to reunion with heretics has always been left open, but only upon, at a minimum, a rejection of the former heretical beliefs and a profession of Faith. Just yesterday I witnessed the reception of two Protestants into Orthodoxy by Chrismation. Part of the sacrament was their renunciation of their former heresies and a profession of The Faith by recitation, and meaning it, of the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed.

Over the past 11 months or so I have read here and elsewhere that leaving everything one knows behind is very very hard. I understand that, but theosis isn't easy. It requires a commitment to The Faith beyond all else, possessions, heritage, even family for some people. Some of us are called to make that sacrifice, some of us are not. I can't say as I understand why that is true, but it is. After the Chrismations yesterday, I was at the Baptism, Chrismation and first Communion of a young women into Orthodoxy. Because of her choice, she has been shunned by her fundamentalist parents who now say they no longer have her as their daughter. She has given up everything, everything of value to her, her own parents because she has little else in this world, to follow Christ as a member of The Church. Her example is a powerful one, but it is one which is repeated every hour of every day around the globe among Christians, especially the African Christians who endanger themselves by proclaiming their membership in the Orthodox, Roman or Anglican Churches. And here people worry about buildings, and trust funds and graveyards and their social ties, so rather than excise the heresy and the heretics, they wring their hands and look for one more compromise like DEPO, or some way to nuance the theology of the Church so that everyone can be happy. The author here really proposes only one valid alternative, a fair divorce. Even an unfair one would be acceptable under the circumstances.

Sorry for the rant.

Sorry for the rant.

I expected no less, my friend. Allow me to explain this from an Anglican's perspective.

As I have said before, many in the Episcopal church were, and are, sheltered from much if not all of this. They focus on their immediate parish, the people they see every Sunday, considering even that other Episcopal parish across town to be so different for just the minutest reasons. For many, things further outside don't impinge much.

Kolokotronis, I am not making this up, I am not proposing a hypothesis -- I am speaking from personal experience. For about 28 years of my life as a cradle Episcopalian I was unaware of any real problem. In restrospect it is obvious but at the time it was not, and the little shudders and shakes that went through the grand ship called Mother Church were explained to us and life went on, albeit slightly differently every time.

In such an environment, awareness comes slowly if there is no one defining revelation. And remember, there are those trying to keep awareness from the rest. Thus we have Anglobabble and the avoidance of speaking straight through the issues. I strongly suspect you will not find those in the Global South, for example.

So when she says "here’s the truth of it, straight away", she's pushing off the blinders. And so is he.

I think too that another part of the problem you mention is that a different, or looser, definition of "communion" has crept into the church -- perhaps pushed by those above, part of all what's keeping the blinders on, and many of these people haven't realized it. Yet.

Add that to the fact that being in (or wanting to) the world-wide Anglican Communion is just almost innate to Anglicans. To this cradle Episcopalian, leaving it was a very hard thing to do and it was years before I came to acceptance of the situation (but always, always, and always still, with hope that it will end someday).

But awareness is now growing rapidly. Somebody posted today that David Virtue says ECUSA is down to 800,000 membership, something like 1/5 what it was years ago. (Just yesterday, an Episcopal priest asked me if we'd been having any visitors from his church because there has been attrition -- I suspect he may not be far behind himself.)

Have patience, my friend, and watch.

I certainly understand what you are saying and believe what you have said to be true. Think about the implications of your comments. Episcopalians have been content to focus on the goings on of their own parish with little or no concern for the very different goings on, I assume either theological or liturgical, in the parish across town. To an Orthodox person, this is astonishing. We are and always have been intensely aware of the the goings on in the wider Church. Even in the ancient Church, every chrismated Christian felt an intense obligation to be informed of The Faith and to defend orthodoxy of both The Faith and its praxis everywhere. There are famous stories of travelers bringing back to the seat of a bishop or metropolitan or even patriarch stories of some heterodox practice having developed somewhere. With surprising speed given the times and the difficulties of communication, the local hierarch would be informed and the heterodox opinion or practice supressed. Of course, at other times heresy took root and it took decades to root it out, but that was usually on account of a heretical emperor supporting the heresy. Condemnation of the heresy, the proclamation of Anathema, was almost instantaneous. +Mark of Ephesus' efforts to overthrow the False Union of Florence in 1453 took almost no time at all, despite the fact that the Eastern hierarchy, except St. Mark, had accepted the same as had the Imperial government. +Mark rallied the lower clergy and the people, who took up the cry "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's mitre" and that, in short order, was that.

Orthodoxy has preserved The Faith precisely because we all, clergy, hierarchy and laity, serve as an orthodox theological and liturgical check on each other. I suppose we could be accused of being a Church composed of Torquemadas, but maybe that's a justifiable appellation. I've seen lower clergy and laity condemn an Archbishop, an Ethnarc, as un-Orthodox to his face in a diocesan council; within a few months, the Archbishop was gone, finished as an Orthodox hierarch though his support had been both broad and deep...and wrong. Neither the laity, nor the clergy nor his fellow hierarchs would remain in communion with him. His "superior", a Patriarch, faced the same threat had he not acted.

Is it possible that the insular nature of Episcopalian parishes is rooted in those compromises the Anglican Church made early in its history to accomodate heterodox belief and practice in the interests of political peace in England? If so, like virtually all the other compromises churches or ecclesial assemblies have made with the world, it has come back to bite ECUSA.

I think I might have mentioned somewhere along the way that in the early 1900s Orthodoxy and Anglicanism were very close and there was talk of a union of the two. Without much thought, Bishop St. Raphael of Brooklyn, the Orthodox hierarch in America at the time, issued an order allowing Orthodox people, in certain limited circumstances, to be ministered to by Episcopal priests. Apparently the Bishop was informed that his order was being either misrepresented or misinterpreted by Episcopal priests. In response he carefully reviewed Anglican theology, something apparently he hadn't done before and issued a new order reversing the first and resigning from the Anglican/Orthodox Union which had been established with an eye to uniting the Churches. His letter revoking the previous order is a good example of how Orthodoxy deals with heterodoxy. Here's a link:
http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/ecumenical/raphael_hawaweeny_episcopal_relations.htm

Kolokotronis, it's way too late in my day to give this proper answer, but I am thinking upon this.

By your Orthodox standards we Anglicans are still a new church and still finding our way. We do not have in our church your extensive Orthodox history of the introduction of heresies and your church's subsequent corrections. You say, "at other times heresy took root and it took decades to root it out" -- why do we Anglicans not get the same accord you accord your Orthodox forebears? If you all were so diligent, how did one or more heresies even take such a deep root? But what is clear is that the Orthodox have developed an "immune system" that works, and that is good. (And I, at least, am willing to learn.)

We Anglicans have not been down this road before, and though we have the guidance of your experience, some of our experience makes us slower to pull the trigger -- today. We (I am speaking for worldwide Anglicanism, and I'm not sure I am qualified to do so) are on new and unfamiliar ground.

I have no doubt but that if Anglicanism survives this crisis (and by survive I mean the world-wide Anglican Communion, because IMHO if it does not survive we will be little more than another Protestant sect), we will have new safeguards, new guidelines, a new immune system and faster (if not yet Orthodox-lightning-quick) triggers.

If Anglicanism doesn't survive... well, I will quit posting here. Because I won't be an Anglican anymore. Fair enough?

"You say, "at other times heresy took root and it took decades to root it out" -- why do we Anglicans not get the same accord you accord your Orthodox forebears? If you all were so diligent, how did one or more heresies even take such a deep root?"

Imperial (Eastern or Holy Roman) support for, or even insistence upon the heresy. It is a wonder, and I suppose a sign from God, that we even survived such things as Arianism or Iconoclasm, or, dare I say it, the filioque clause. In each event, though, the persistence of the heresy was due to Imperial involvement of one sort or the other. Without that suypport heresy was stomped on quickly, at least for the times. None of us have that excuse anymore and haven't for a very long time.

As for experience with heresy, well aren't the founding documents of Anglicanism in part a catelogue of Roman heresies? I think its simply that heresy doesn't have much meaning in at least 1st world Anglicanism and that in great part can be traced to the compromises I mentioned in the earlier post. Apparently Orthodoxy and orthopraxis just don't have the value for Episcopalians which they do for Eastern Orthodox people. You say you've not been down this road before, but you have, many times, and have avoided the issue for reasons which were sufficient for the church at the time.

" If Anglicanism doesn't survive... well, I will quit posting here. Because I won't be an Anglican anymore. Fair enough?"

Why am I sure, noble sionnsar, that you'll have plenty to post about, the future status of the Anglican Communion notwithstanding? :) We can say bad things about the EP, the Pope and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, chuckle over which one of us gets to stand on their shoulders and then discuss pneumatology!

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