Is The Advent Letter Good Enough?

The Anglican Scotist, in reviewing the Archbishop of Canterbury's Advent Letter, quotes these words of Archbishop Williams:

Williams: Thus it is not surprising if some have concluded that the official organs of The Episcopal Church, in confirming the election of Gene Robinson and in giving what many regard as implicit sanction to same-sex blessings of a public nature have put in question the degree to which it can be recognised as belonging to the same family by deciding to act against the strong, reiterated and consistent advice of the Instruments of Communion.

In response Scotist says:

Scotist: Robinson is not addressed as bishop, but as an individual with a scandalous sexuality. He is being treated here as the exception, subjected to the unique authority of the Archbishop as a means to securing the Communion's unity: a sacred man or, in another conceptual framework, a scapegoat.... He has done this sort of thing to Robinson before and shows no sign of letting up--a merely personal tick?

While I agree with Scotist that it appears that the archbishop is treating Gene Robinson as a "special case" and making him a scapegoat, I part company with him, when he concludes:

Scotist: Still, this letter is good enough to work with. We would probably do well not addressing Williams' personal idiosyncracies head-on; they are not that important, and we need less wrangling. We already know, for instance, he does not view--even in this letter-- TEC or any province as a real church, he treats Robinson as a scapegoat, and he questions the legitimacy of our episcopate. While it would be tempting to take these views on, we would probably do better ignoring these oddities.

I wonder why it is that Scotist - and many others - don't ask Gene Robinson's view of not being addressed as a bishop and, even more important, whether he is willing to play the role of the scapegoat, while the rest of us refrain from objecting to the views expressed by Archbishop Williams in the letter. Again, we are talking about the person most affected by the words in the letter, without bringing him into the conversation. It's easy for me or the Scotist to say, "Well, yes, this letter is good enough to work with," when we have a much smaller stake in the game than Bishop Robinson.

The consecration of Bishop Robinson is not the cause of the divisions in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. His consecration may have widened the divisions, but the divisions were there already. I have been attending my Episcopal Church for 11 years, and long before Gene Robinson became a bishop, I knew folks who said that they would not take communion from a woman priest, and who mocked them by calling them "priestesses", intimating that they were not legitimate priests.

Even more recently, when we were in the process of searching for a rector, I asked if any of the women priests who had visited would be given consideration as serious candidates, I was told that calling a woman priest would only be setting her up for failure, therefore the women would not be considered.

Archbishop Williams knows quite well that the troubles did not start with the consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop, and he is wrong to suggest that. As of this day, there are no women bishops in the Church of England. Bishops in the US are permitted to restrict ordinations of women to the priesthood in their dioceses. The Communion is not yet of one mind about the ordination of women, yet it has held together, if ever so tenuously, in spite of differing views.

And I'm not even taking on the question of whether we can be "recognised as belonging to the same family".

Thanks to Jim Naughton at the Episcopal Café for the link to the Anglican Scotist.