Responding to the Study Guide: Question 2

(2) How closely does this view of communion accord with your understanding of the development and vocation of the Anglican Communion?

This question is responding to “An Introduction to a Draft Text for an Anglican Covenant,” a brief theological reflection. It is, as the Study Guide says, an “initial theological introduction to the Draft Covenant which is to follow immediately afterwards.”

Perhaps the goal of the Covenant Design Group was explicitly brevity. Sadly, as a result of the brevity, this Introduction says almost nothing about the actual development of the Anglican Communion, and little about the Communion’s vocation.

Indeed, this Introduction would apply equally, I think, to all Christian bodies; and certainly to any that would fall within the historic bodies that might meet the standards of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. It asserts a “Communion of Anglican churches,” through which we are provided “with a special charism.” I think for all of us who would call ourselves Anglicans we believe these statements to be true. However, there is nothing in these assertions that distinguishes our “special charism” or even the parameters of our “Communion of Anglican churches” from the charisms of the communions of Roman and Uniate, or Orthodox, or Lutheran churches.

Perhaps there is more specificity on these questions in the further development of the Draft covenant. Still, it would seem to me that our understanding of our charism would be critical in developing the content of an Anglican Covenant. To give an (admittedly overly simplistic example), such possible perspectives as “to bring the world to Christ,” or “to participate in the building of God’s kingdom, “ or “to be co-creators with God in the restoration of creation” are arguably all connected, and perhaps inextricable. However, each statement predisposes a different understanding of mission, and of means. We have long spoken of ourselves as a “bridge,” embracing both catholic and reformed elements within the Christian tradition. However, we have wrestled for four centuries on how to balance those catholic and reformed elements. Those different perspectives, reflecting different approaches to Biblical hermeneutics, to understanding history and our place in it, and to the formation of theology and doctrine, are not clearly reflected in this brief Introduction.

Thus, the contrast is unclear between the “coherent testimony” that “our faith embodies, “ and “the wider Church.” Since the implication is that “the wider Church” is the body of Christ beyond the “Communion of Anglican churches,” and since the Introduction asserts “interdependence among ourselves and [also] with the wider Communion,” distinguishing our “special charism” and our “coherent testimony” would seem particularly important.

The Introduction asserts together, and implicitly equates, “the need for mutual commitment and [also for mutual] discipline.” We wrestle now with the question of just how much mutual discipline is necessary to demonstrate mutual commitment. Thus, it seems presumptuous to link the two without qualification. I would indeed agree that we must work out together how we will “be faithful to God’s promises through the historic faith we confess [as loaded as the word 'confess' might be here], the way we live together and the focus of our mission.” However, I believe we must be clear that the most important expression of “the faith we confess” must be “the focus of our mission;” and that it is out of that emphasis that we then determine “the way we live together.” That, I think, would be the proper sequence, and not the sequence as expressed.

Again, all these questions may arise out of the intent that the Introduction be brief. They will, I expect, be addressed in the body of the Draft Text. However, to respond to the Study Guide question as stated: I do not believe this Introduction clearly addresses the “development and vocation of the Anglican Communion.” The lack of even minimal specificity about what it might mean to be Anglican in the context of “the wider Church” prevents this from being adequate.

One Chaplain's Perspective

I participate in a Yahoo group for chaplains in One Person Departments. One of our ongoing topics is the stress many of us feel trying to balance the patient care, the experience of our initial call, and the administrative responsibilities that we all have. And we certainly do have those. Indeed, the smaller the institution, the more likely we are to have them. That’s partly a result of smaller leadership groups, and partly a result of our related greater visibility.


Still, those responsibilities do take us away from the bedside. And since that’s where we first found our vocation, emotionally it’s that much harder to be pulled away. So, we wrestle in our hearts, and we wrestle with our roles.


This is my most recent post to the list. In its way, it expresses my own sense of where my call is today, and how I seek to live it out.

I have struggled with my own perspective, but less so as the years go by. I did, though, have to reframe my sense of what I can do, and so my intent toward what I will do.

My stated intent is to create (or contribute significantly to creating, depending on my audience) a compassionate culture for care. That certainly includes bedside care, and for my hospital's size my referrals are about proportional to Tim's, if not a bit higher. That also includes good "industrial chaplaincy" in caring for staff. If I show them good care, both in the sense of providing it and modeling it, I believe they will be more sensitive to spiritual needs, and both make better referrals and provide more sensitive support themselves.

But in addition, that puts some perspective on the administrative time, orienting staff or chairing the Ethics Committee or participating in Joint Commission preparation. Yeah, it often feels far from the bedside; but I have seen how it affects what happens at the bedside. I have also seen how it confirms my authority with the administration so that when there is an issue I feel it important to raise, I know I will be heard.

I have often compared this to our parochial colleagues who speak of their role as empowering the ministries of all the people of God. I can't use quite the same language in the hospital, but I can maintain the same perspective. Everyone here contributes, for good or ill, to the explicit and implicit ways that patients and families experience spiritual support. If I can shape the culture, I have a shot at benefiting every patient - something I couldn't do focusing only on bedside care - and I can focus my specific gifts and specialized training on those needs and events to which they're best suited.

Now, I'm an Episcopal chaplain in an Episcopal health system; and so when I introduce myself as the "Owner's Rep," they smile, but they listen. Still, working to shape the experience of all patients will, I believe, go much farther than I can go on my own.

(And on some bad days I still add to that, "or so I tell myself.")

Responding to the Study Guide: Question 1

I have already posted the release by the Executive Council of a Study Guide on the Report of the Covenant Design Group and the Draft Covenant. Let me begin my own process of responding to the Study Guide.

(1) Do you think an Anglican Covenant is necessary and/or will help to strengthen the interdependent life of the Anglican Communion? Why or why not?

I have considered the possibility that a covenant document might help clarify relations and means of relating between Provinces of the Anglican Communion. I am one who has suggested that a concordat might be better, especially in light of several existing concordats that seem to be functioning well ("Call to Common Mission," for example).

However, this is an answer only in the abstract. I am concerned by the Report of the Covenant Design Group, even prior to the Draft Covenant, in that the Group’s inclination seems less to strengthen than to harden the Communion.

First, let me question the “particular factors” that moved their proposal.

1. Content
The text of the Covenant would need to hold together and strengthen the life of the Communion. To do so, it need not introduce some new development into the life of the Communion but rather be the clarification of a process of discernment which was embodied in the Windsor Report and in the recent reality of the life of the Instruments of Communion, and which was founded in and built upon the elements traditionally articulated in association with Anglicanism and the life of the Anglican Churches.

The problem I see with this factor is the failure to acknowledge that the Windsor Report and any Windsor Process are themselves “new developments into the life of the Communion.” Those portions of the Windsor Report that speak of “elements traditionally articulated in association with Anglicanism” seem the portions least observed.

2. Urgency
While a definitive text which held all such elements in balance might take time to develop in the life of the Communion, there was also an urgent need to re-establish trust between the churches of the Communion. The faithfulness of patterns of obedience to Christ were no longer recognised across the Communion, despite Paul’s call to another way of life (Romans 14.15), and its life would suffer irreparably if some measure of mutual and common commitment to the Gospel was not reasserted in a short time frame. We were mindful also of the words of the Primates at Oporto, “We are conscious that we all stand together at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ, so we know that to turn away from each other would be to turn away from the Cross”.

This paragraph harks back to an earlier statement:

It was also recognised, however, that the proposal for a covenant was born out of a specific context in which the Communion’s life was under severe strain. While the group felt that it was important that the strength of a covenant would be greater if it addressed broad principles, and did not focus on particular issues, the need for its introduction into the life of the Communion in order to restore trust was urgent.

It is the very sense of urgency that should cause us to pause and reflect. It is a truism that “big cases make bad laws;” and this is the risk we run here if we allow a sense of urgency to overtake us. Certainly, we have experienced this sufficiently here in the United States in light of the threats to individual conscience and liberties that came in poorly crafted laws in reaction to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Indeed, there is an inconsistency within the paragraph of the second “factor.” If indeed, “to turn away from each other is to turn away from Christ,” can we trust our “measure of mutual and common commitment to the Gospel” to rest on “patterns of obedience?” At best that is an urge toward standardization across the Communion that would undermine our cherished respect for expressions of the faith (not to mention episcopacy) adapted to local needs and conditions. At worst it is essentially works righteousness. If the alternative it “to turn away from Christ,” how much grace must we be willing to offer one another? Have we not been called to forgive one another "seventy times seven?" Here, however, the call of some perceived urgency pushes for “common commitment” defined by “common patterns of obedience.”

And yet, other crises have not met this sense of urgency. Despite the distorted, sadly optimistic presentation in the Windsor Report of the process of reception of women in orders, that issue remains unsettled, and the Communion divided. This division was highlighted by those primates who refused to receive communion with Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, not because she was Episcopalian, but because she was a woman. We are only now exploring a process of discerning the variations in hermeneutics in the Communion, surely a prior, pressing issue in determining “authentic Anglicanism.”

More critically, we have not determined what we mean by “interdependence,” or “autonomy,” or “ bonds of affection.” We suggest at various times that all of these are desirable, and worth some preservation, and yet we are not agreed on their meaning or parameters. These are surely critical understandings that would precede any effort to agree on topics that are not matters of core doctrine.

Thus, while I might think in abstract that some form of agreement might “strengthen the interdependent life of the Anglican Communion,” a poorly formed agreement, entered in haste, will surely threaten either the “dependence” or the “inter-“ concepts in interdependence. The life of the Communion will be harder and more brittle, but hardly stronger. If it is indeed our prayer “that God will redeem our struggles and weakness, and renew and enrich our common life,” we cannot deny our weakness by avoiding struggles – struggles that cannot, must not be rushed or preempted. An agreement formed and entered in haste will surely be repented at leisure.

Gaining Historical Perspective

As sometimes happens, it never rains but it pours. This time it’s rained pennies from heaven. I continued my search for scholarly responses to current issues in the Church, and discoveries began to multiply.

Specifically, I discovered the web site for The Whole Message Conference: Inclusiveness in the Anglican Church of Canada. The conference was held last week (April 13-14) and, significantly, just before the Retreat of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada. That event gained more attention for the attendance of the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, I think we might well note this earlier conference as well. (Audio and/or texts of most presentations at the conference are available here.)

I discovered this when I found this paper, "The Episcopal Church: A Half Century of Turbulence and Transformation," by the Rt. Rev. Arthur Walmsley, retired Bishop of Connecticut, and Chaplain to the Diocese of New Hampshire. I encourage you to take the time to read it all.

The real value and power of Bishop Walmsley’s paper for me is the review of the past half century in the Episcopal Church by one who witnessed it all. Indeed, he goes back more than 50 years to the end of World War II, recounting the events and charting the trends that established within the Episcopal Church the sense of God’s call to pursue justice.

Important to his witness to events is his ability to provide the facts that place in context some things we’ve assumed. He references the significant decrease in church attendance in Europe and the significant increase in the United States after the Second World War. He incorporates the tensions around formation of the World Council of Churches, and the efforts, largely led by Americans, to resurrect meetings of a Pan-Anglican Congress, one that would include all orders of ministry including the laity. He describes the series of civil rights issues (racial, gender, and sexual) and related ecclesial issues (African-American participation in the Church, ordination of women, Prayer Book Revision, acceptance of GLBT Christians) that have shaped the current context in the United States, and in the Episcopal Church. In that sense, he notes,

It goes without saying that as the US enters the fifth year of a disastrous war in Iraq, our government's justification of torture and rendition (including a notable case which has divided the US and Canada), the frequent incursions of the US militarily in Latin America throughout the twentieth century, our rejection of the Kyoto treaty and other international agreements have increased US isolation in the global picture. The Episcopal Church and other main-stream Protestant bodies have moved from being establishment elites to politically-marginalized critics of the government. (Emphasis mine)

Bishop Walmsley has a clear sense of the real issues in the Anglican Communion.

The question before the Communion is Which vision and implementing structures of Anglican community will prevail?. Will they be based on the work of an Anglican Consultative Council with its inclusiveness of all orders with the Church? Will the evident commitment among provinces north and south be to work together on the global realities embodied in response to the Millennium Development Goals or the more limited agenda of human sexuality? Or will the next chapter be limited to initiatives by the other three instruments of unity -- the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, and the Primates' Meeting -- all of which consist of bishops alone? And which vision will inform further developments of the Windsor Report and the Covenant process?

His historical review is, I think, quite helpful in understanding just how we got here. I hope you’ll take the time to read it all.

Some Scholars Found

Not long ago, I asked the question, “Where are our scholars?” My point was that historically we Anglicans have looked to scholars to help us interpret Scripture, Tradition, and how we might apply Reason to them, in light of the issues confronting each generation.

Well, I continue to look; and thanks to the extensive resources compiled by Dr. Louie Crew, I found my way to the Windsor Report Papers. According to Dr. J. Robert Wright, Professor at the General Theological Seminary, and Historiographer of the Episcopal Church, “The following essays [were] written by students of the General Theological Seminary who were associated with my course in the spring term of 2005 entitled "Seminar in Anglican Ecclesiology and the Windsor Report."” So, these are papers prepared by some who will be clergy and scholars in the Episcopal Church. You can link from the main page to each paper and read on line.

I haven’t had a chance to read all the papers, but I have certainly found interesting those I have read. Check out, for example, Thomas Heard’s "When is a Primate like a King?" It is an interesting exploration of the distinctive differences in the authority and responsibilities of Primates in the Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and the Church of Nigeria – Anglican. Or read Jefferson R. Hulet’s "Uses of Authority in the Text of the Lambeth Commission on Communion Windsor Report 2004." He finds a theme in the understanding of authority in the Church in the Windsor Report, one that implies greater authority for the Instruments of Unity over national synods. We’ve seen these issues lived out since publication of the Windsor Report. These authors argue for these issues as inherent in the Windsor Report itself, and as pertinent to the reception that is central to any understanding of a Windsor Process.

Some would say that the Windsor Report is old news, and that subsequent statements from Dromantine and Tanzania (links here), and subsequent actions of the General Convention (not to mention “facts on the ground”) have superseded its importance. However, each statement and each action returns again and again to the Windsor Report for reference and authority. Each step proposed for a Windsor Process refers back to principles and proposals from the Report. If we are accumulating layers of interpretation and response, the Windsor Report itself and the issues it raises remain the parameters within which the Anglican Communion wrestles.

So, I want to point to and highlight these papers written by some of our newest scholars. Our scholars are indeed thinking and writing. Whenever we can, we then need to bring them to the attention of the wider Episcopal/Anglican community.