According to their website, "The Modern Churchpeople's Union (MCU) is a membership organization [in the UK] that promotes liberal theology." The president of the group is Rt Revd John Saxbee, Bishop of Lincoln.
From the MCU:
COMMUNION, COVENANT AND OUR ANGLICAN FUTURE
MCU's reply to Drs Williams and Wright
This paper is a critique of two papers, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham respectively. Both are responses to the decision by the Episcopal Church of the USA (TEC), at its General Convention in July 2009, to abandon its earlier moratoria on same-sex blessings and openly homosexual bishops.
I found the link to this statement at Pluralist Speaks. I deliberately did not read Adrian's post to see which excerpts to the paper he chose to quote, because I didn't want to be a complete copycat.
The response to Drs Williams and Wright is excellent. It is lengthy but is worth reading in its entirety. The emphases in bold type throughout are mine and are there because the particular words resonated strongly for me.
Williams and Wright both acknowledge that progress is not being made in the controversy over homosexuality, but blame TEC for this failure. Williams writes: 'a realistic assessment of what Convention has resolved does not suggest that it will repair the broken bridges into the life of other Anglican provinces... The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favour.'
Wright puts his case more bluntly and reveals his impatience: 'the Communion is indeed already broken... the breach has already occurred. We are not, then, looking now at TEC choosing for the first time to "walk apart", but at the recognition that they did so some time ago and have done nothing to indicate a willingness to rejoin the larger Communion' (3).
Thus Wright declares with characteristic bluntness that authoritarianism which Williams shares but prefers not to advertise. Both insist there is an Anglican consensus that homosexuality is immoral, and on that basis blame the Americans for acting contrary to it. Outside the higher echelons of church bureaucracies this seems a bizarre claim: in normal English usage 'consensus' means 'general agreement (of opinion, testimony, etc.)' (Concise Oxford Dictionary) or 'general or widespread agreement among all the members of a group' (Encarta Dictionary). The current controversy is precisely about whether homosexuality is indeed immoral, and as long as debate continues nothing could be clearer than the fact that there is no consensus.
Is there something of the good-cop, bad-cop strategy at play between Williams and Wright? I first believed that the ABC would be embarrassed by Bp. Wright's words, but now, I wonder. Perhaps he's pleased to have Wright speak out.
Furthermore, even if there were a consensus that homosexuality is immoral, their conclusions would not follow. Anglicanism does not have a papal magisterium: every province would be departing from the consensus as and when it saw fit. Neither the Archbishop nor the Primates' meetings nor the ACC nor Lambeth conferences has the legal or moral authority to impose a particular view - even a majority view - on the whole Communion.
Yet Williams and Wright both write as though this authority was already there, already competent to discipline the Americans for disobeying instructions. We must therefore ask why these two senior clergy, who know full well that Anglicanism does not have central authorities with that authority, condemn the Americans on the basis that it does. It is difficult to avoid the obvious conclusion: that (perhaps without realising it) they are in the process of creating an authoritarian centralised system, and are identifying themselves with it. The Americans are to blame for the controversy only from the perspective of those claiming more authority than they have.
Yes, here we see the belief that the strategy of creating the facts on the ground as though the reality is already in place will, in fact, put the reality in place. Remember the Windsor Report, which is only a report, but somehow morphed into a law according to certain members of the Anglican Communion?
Well, I believe that my posts on the MCU's reply to Williams and Wright will be in parts, so consider this Part I.
Oh, it seems like every time we get a nail in the Covenant Coffin, they pop one off on the other side.... But this is a good one! Thanks for the lead Grandmere.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, the title is my try at creating facts on the ground.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see the English speaking up, isn't it?
Oh yes indeed. Finally. But I think we are all in for a long haul....
ReplyDeleteI think this could be more than one nail!
ReplyDeleteSusan, more than one English prelate openly disrespects our church and our Presiding Bishop, to say nothing of the voices of the laity and ordinary clergy, so surely they won't pay attention to anything we say. Maybe they'll listen to their own.
ReplyDelete