My Therapy Session

For now, I seem to be mentally blocked from posting anything substantial until I tackle the specific parts that trouble me the most in the The Archbishop of Canterbury's concluding Presidential Address at the Lambeth Conference. If you like you can skip this post and write it off as my therapy session, because it will, very likely, be boring to most people.

The archbishop says:

What I am saying, in effect, is that every association of Christian individuals and groups makes some sort of ‘covenant’ for the sake of mutual recognition, mutual gratitude and mutual learning.

Of course we do. First of all, we have the New Covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself." We have the Creeds, in which we affirm our beliefs each time we gather in a Eucharistic celebration. Then, we have the Baptismal Covenant. Each time a Baptism takes place in a church, those baptized and the members of the congregation who are present affirm the Baptismal Covenant. Why another covenant? I don't see the need.

But let me turn briefly to another dimension of all this, so as to draw in considerations of other matters we’ve discussed. I have just said something of what might be involved in a covenanted future, and I believe - as I said on Thursday - that it has the potential to make us more of a church; more of a ‘catholic’ church in the proper sense, a church, that is, which understands its ministry and service and sacraments as united and interdependent throughout the world.

Now I find that statement downright scary. One of the reasons that I moved from the Roman Catholic Church to the Episcopal Church was my discomfort with the top-down governance in the RCC. This statement increases my suspicion that the archbishop and others in positions of authority want to move toward a more authoritarian structure in the Anglican Communion.

Speaking for myself, I don't want to be a world-wide Anglican Church. I want to remain an Anglican Communion. The world-wide Anglican Church is a pretty big pill to swallow, especially after the archbishop has already said:

A fellow-Christian may believe they have a profound fresh insight. They seek to persuade others about it. A healthy church gives space for such exchanges. But the Christian with the new insight can’t claim straight away that this is now what the Church of God believes or intends; and it quite rightly takes a long time before any novelty can begin to find a way into the public liturgy, even if it has been widely agreed. Confusion arises when what is claimed as a new discernment presents itself as carrying the Church’s authority.

The archbishop seems to be pushing a fresh insight, so how can he "claim straight away that this is now what the" Anglican Communion intends? Of course, the archbishop uses the expression "Church of God", instead of Anglican Communion, which confuses me further. "Church of God", "world-wide Anglican Church", Anglican Communion, which is it?

In 1998, the Windsor Report called for the moratoria on same-sex blessings and consecration of new bishops in faithful, partnered same-sex relationships. In 2008, the archbishop asks for the same moratoria. For how long? Ten more years? Until the next Lambeth? Until the "mind of the church" comes together? Until kingdom come?

But that’s a powerful reminder that a global church and a global faith are not just about managing internal controversy. Our global, Catholic faith affirms that the image of God is the same everywhere - in the Zimbabwean woman beaten by police in her own church, in the manual scavenger in India denied the rights guaranteed by law; in the orphan of natural disaster in Burma, in the abducted child forced into soldiering in Northern Uganda, in the hundreds of thousands daily at risk in Darfur and Southern Sudan, in the woman raising a family in a squatters’ settlement in Lima or Buenos Aires. This is the Catholic faith : that what is owed to them is no different from, no less than what is owed to any of the rest of us. That was the faith to which we witnessed in our march in London. And if the message of this Conference is silent about this, something has gone very wrong.

Aside from the "global church" thingy, it's a fine statement of what the Anglican Communion should be about, except that he neglects to mention the affirmation of "the image of God" in those who are arrested, tortured, beaten, and killed, even in his own land and my land, in the name of homophobia. What about them, Archbishop Williams?

In the months to come, we will see, according the archbishop, the appointment of a Pastoral Forum to support minorities (which minorities?), an Anglican Consultative Council meeting, a Primates Meeting, and a meeting of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the ACC. In addition, in the year 2009, the Episcopal Church will meet at General Convention. Many meetings. We shall see.

Well, that seems to be enough for now. Catharsis! Perhaps, now I can move on.