ALAS...

LIVING THE SIMPLE LIFE

DISCIPLINE

Doug has very kindly been searching for the Episcopal Church take off on the New Yorker cover pictured here. He did not find what he was looking for, but he found the image below. Click on the picture for the larger view.

MADPRIEST HAD IT FIRST

The Guardian published a blockbuster of a revelation by Colin Slee from beyond the grave. MadPriest had the link first, and I believe he'd want you to comment over at OCICBW. Of course, I could be wrong.

OH NOOO! ROWAN WAS RIGHT!

Stolen from MadPriest at Of Course I Could Be Wrong.

UPDATE: Another rapture favorite from somegreybloke. I'm a little late with the video - or perhaps not. The Rev Camping was only certain of the day, not the hour. Thanks to Erika at Facebook.



And another from Countlight.

ALTHOUGH I'M TAKING A SABBATICAL...

OMG! Hegelian Dialectic in Anglican Robes. - Tobias

...from "As the Anglican World Turns", Elizabeth Kaeton at Telling Secrets is not. If the following quote from the post is not enough to get you over to her blog...

Here's but one example of Blessed Rowan's cluelessness: At the press conference at the end of the Primates meeting, Dr. Williams indicated that he is planning a global tour to mend fences to, he said, in his very own inimical way (Are you ready for this? Okay, here we go), "find a synthesis between the thesis of sexual orthodoxy and the antithesis of homosexual practice".

...then there's something wrong with you. Sorry, but it's true. :-)

LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

On December 7, 2010, the moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, the Revd. Dr. Lesley Fellows wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on behalf of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition. Since, after more than five weeks, no response has been forthcoming from the office of the archbishop, we have decided to make the letter public. The text is reproduced below. A PDF version of the letter is available from the No Anglican Covenant Web site.

7th December 2010

Dear Archbishop Rowan,

I am the Moderator of the International No Anglican Covenant Coalition, and I am writing to explain why our group is opposed to the Anglican Covenant. My hope is that through this correspondence, we may come to a better understanding of each other's approaches to the Anglican Covenant. These are some of our objections:

Firstly, the Covenant creates a two-or-more-tier Communion, as we know that some Provinces will not or cannot consent to it. This means that some Anglicans are 'in' the Communion, and some are less 'in'. There is no getting away from the feeling that the Covenant creates first- and second-class Christians. This in itself is unacceptable, but it also opens the door to some churches 'asking questions' about others if they perform 'controversial actions', ultimately leading to the imposition of 'relational consequences'. Hence, it favours the intolerant and the very conservative. Jim Naughton has said that the Covenant institutes "governance by hurt feelings". This seems counter to the gospel imperative of not judging others, but bearing with them and concentrating on the logs in one's own eye. A two-tier Communion does not represent unity.

Secondly, it seems unlikely that one can 'make forceful the bonds of affection'. "Where love rules, there is no will to power", Jung said. If we use force and coercion in our relationships, there is no true affection. A Covenant is made in joy at a time of trust - like a marriage. The Anglican Covenant is in reality a contract between parties where the trust has broken down. It may seem to you that this is the only way forward, but a better option is to remain a single-tier Communion, allow people to leave if they must, but keep the door open for their return. Any alternative position cedes too much power to those willing to intimidate by threatening to walk away.

Thirdly, in many countries, such as England, centralised institutions are breaking down and being replaced by networks. There is a great suspicion of hierarchical structures and rules that are enforced from above, particularly when the central authority is both physically and culturally distant. The Fresh Expressions movement is successful because it recognises this. The Anglican Communion, which is a fellowship of autonomous churches, is well placed to thrive in the challenges of this age. If we adopt the Covenant, then we will be less able to be mission-focussed in our own culture because we will be constrained by the Communion's centralised decision-making. One might say that Communion churches are on separate tectonic plates - the plates of modernism, postmodernism, and perhaps even pre-modernism. They are moving apart, and if we try to bind them together more tightly, then schism will surely occur. At this point in history, we need more flexible relationships, not a tightening of bonds.

I implore you to reconsider your support of the Anglican Covenant. I have the greatest respect for you as a person of God and for the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. However, I feel the Covenant is in a way like suicide - it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Moreover, it institutionalises inequality and judgementalism. In addition, I believe it will not work and will itself cause, rather than prevent, schism. Let us concentrate on things that bring us together, such as mission, worship and prayer, and let us agree to differ on issues that tear us apart, not judge who is wrong and who is right, who is 'in and who is 'out'.

Our group would very much like to begin a dialogue with you. We have the same aims of strengthening love and unity within the Communion and enabling out churches to go forward in mission, even if we have currently come to radically different conclusions about how to achieve those aims. We hope very much to hear from you.

With very best wishes


Rev'd Dr Lesley Fellows
Moderator, No Anglican Covenant Coalition

Westfields
Church Lane
Ludgershall
Buckinghamshire
HP18 9NU

Full disclosure: I am a member of the NACC, and I approve this message.

Drawing by the Rev'd Dr Lesley Fellows.

CHRISTMAS SERMON FROM CANTERBURY

Whenever I read or listen to a speech or a sermon by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, I confess that I wait for the "Gotcha!" moment. Very likely, all of us, myself included, have moments when we appear to contradict ourselves by our words or by our actions. So I preface my comments here with the sorry disclaimer of a bad attitude, hardly in the spirit of the present season, because I have been puzzled more times than I can count by the seeming contradictions in the words and actions of the ABC. I read the text of the archbishop's Christmas sermon in just such a manner. There is much that is good and true in the sermon, but I did not have long to wait for the moment. Early in the sermon, come the following wonderful words:

The story of Jesus is the story of a God who keeps promises. As St Paul wrote to the Corinthians, 'however many the promises God made, the Yes to them all is in him'. God shows himself to be the same God he always was. He brings hope out of hopelessness – out of the barrenness of unhappy childless women like Sarah and Hannah. He takes strangers and makes them at home; he brings his greatest gifts out of those moments when the barriers are down between insiders and outsiders. He draws people from the ends of the earth to wonder – not this time at the glory of Solomon but at the miracle of his presence among the humble and outcast. He identifies with those, especially children, who are the innocent and helpless victims of insane pride and fear. He walks into exile with those he loves and leads them home again. (My emphasis)

Inevitably, my mind moves to the daft Anglican Covenant. If the covenant is put in place, the result could be to raise barriers between member churches of the Communion, rather than bring barriers down, to declare certain members insiders and other members outsiders, or the lesser discipline, to label certain churches of the Communion as second tier, not quite up to par, assigned to the fringe as "not like us".

I cannot resolve in my mind the seeming contradiction that the man who speaks such words in the sermon about bringing down barriers, at the same time, urges upon the member churches of the Anglican Communion the exclusionary and divisive Anglican Covenant. I don't get it.

Archbishop Williams goes on:

And lastly, a point that we rightly return to on every great Christian festival, there is our solidarity with those of our brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world who are suffering for their Christian faith or their witness to justice or both. Yet again, I remind you of our Zimbabwean friends, still suffering harassment, beatings and arrests, legal pressures and lockouts from their churches; of the dwindling Christian population in Iraq, facing more and more extreme violence from fanatics – and it is a great grace that both Christians and Muslims in this country have joined in expressing their solidarity with this beleaguered minority. Our prayers continue for Asia Bibi in Pakistan and others from minority groups who suffer from the abuse of the law by certain groups there. We may feel powerless to help; yet we should also know that people in such circumstances are strengthened simply by knowing they have not been forgotten. And if we find we have time to spare for joining in letter-writing campaigns for all prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International and Christian Solidarity worldwide will have plenty of opportunities for us to make use of.

Our Christian brothers and sisters call out for help and we must pray for them, support them, and help in any way possible.

Those who suffer for conscience sake as they strive for justice and equality deserve our same help and support.

But what about our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution, violence, and even death in areas of the world because of who they are? What about our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, many of them Christians, many of them Anglican? A mention urging prayer, support, and help for LGTB persons is strangely absent from the archbishop's Christmas sermon.

Is it just me? Is my habitual nitpicking of the archbishop's words and actions in play here in an unjust manner?

QUOTE OF THE DAY - ROWAN WILLIAMS

'Hooker has this at least in common with Luther, that he is profoundly suspicious of conditions other than baptism as a test of belonging to the Church; and he is in effect saying to his opponents [the Puritans] that they are not Protestant enough, if the touchstone of Protestantism is witness to the liberty and the priority of God's act.'

Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past, p. 78.

Drawing of Rowan Williams by Lesley Fellows.

H/T to Lesley Fellows at Lesley's Blog for the quote.

I'd have no post here without the awesome Lesley Fellows.

SHALL WE DANCE?

Rowan and John and other dignitaries at the opening ceremonies of the Church of England General Synod. You spotters of British royalty are in luck.

Thanks to Ann for the picture and the title.

"A CANTERBURY TALE"

Jane Kramer's long essay in the New Yorker, titled "A Canterbury Tale", on the Church of England and its internal battle over women bishops is now available online in its entirety. I read the piece earlier because, although I didn't yet have my copy of the magazine, as a subscriber, I have access to the full contents of the online version of the magazine. I still don't have my copy. The New Yorker takes forever to get to my house ever since Katrina, and I don't know if it's the magazine or the Postal Service that is responsible for the delay. Back to the article. It's worth a read.

Here's my comment at The Lead to its first post on the article when only the abstract was available:

Since I don't yet have my copy of the New Yorker, I read the entire article online, and I thought it was excellent. Kramer did her homework before writing. I now understand the Church of England much better than I ever did, and I see how the situation in England drives a good many of the statements of the ABC.

I also understand Rowan Williams a little better after reading Kramer's piece, which does not lead me to further agreement with him. You don't throw certain people under the bus for the sake of saving the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England.

Still, with all Kramer's good work, she doesn't get the difference between the adjective "Episcopal" and the noun "Episcopalian". Why is it so difficult to get that right? Sorry. The mistake grates.

The first words of Kramer's article drew me in like the invitation of a gracious host:

Remember the Church of England, that mythically placid community of Sunday Christians and beaming vicars whom you met in Austen and possibly came to loathe in Trollope?

Moving on, I'll highlight several quotes entice you to read the essay.

It took seventeen years of wrenching Synod debate for women to be ordained, and when they were, some five hundred male priests fled in protest—two-thirds of them, as the saying goes, “to Rome.” The prospect of women’s elevation to the House of Bishops has been even more divisive. This isn’t a question of High Church and Low Church differences. England’s church has always been (the common word) “inclusive.” It grew as an uneasy accommodation between the traditionalists of the Apostolic Creed and Catholic ritual and devotions now known as Anglo-Catholics and the brimstone-and-Bible Protestants born in the chapels of the Reformation, making common cause against the Church of Rome. Today, it covers a sliding scale of beliefs and practices, with the majority of England’s Anglican parishes somewhere in the middle. But the argument about women bishops cuts across all the old divisions. Thousands of conservative Anglicans—priests and laymen—on both sides of the High Church–Low Church divide still refuse to take Communion from a female priest, and would certainly refuse to take it from any priest ordained by a female bishop.

The wenches cause such distress to the advocates of patriarchy in the Church of England, forcing them to make wrenching decisions. How cruel of the wenches!

“How do you eat an elephant?” he [Rowan Williams] said, with something between a chuckle and a sigh, when I asked how he hoped to hold his church together, given that the demands of Anglican women were so completely at odds with the demands of Anglican men whose own inclusion specifically involved excluding those women from episcopal service. “I suppose it’s by using as best I can the existing consultative mechanisms to create a climate—and I think that’s often the best, to create a climate,” he told me. “There’s a phrase which has struck me very much: that you can actually ruin a good cause by pushing it at the wrong moment and not allowing the process of discernment and consent to go on, and that’s part of my view.” He thought that with time, patience, and enough discussion within the Church you could temper the opposition to female bishops—despite the fact that three synods since 1994 have tried to address the issue, and the opposition remains intractable. His friends call this “Rowan’s Obama syndrome”: the persistence of a commendable but not very realistic belief in the power of reason to turn your enemies into allies.

Perhaps if someone walked the ABC through a realistic appraisal of the climate he has created, he'd come to see that his climate plan is not working well, and following "the process of discernment and consent" as he envisages it, women could wait decades for their opportunity to become bishops.

With respect to "Rowan's Obama syndrome", Obama seems to have learned the lesson that his original plan to work with the opposition wasn't working, and he changed his plan. May we hope that the ABC will see that all is not sunny in the climate that he's created and consider a change of plan? I guess not.

The words of a member of the opposition to women bishops in the Church of England:

Geoffrey Kirk, an unabashedly misogynist London vicar who is the national secretary of Forward in Faith, told me that, for him, the tipping point was the Episcopalian bishops’ election of Jefferts Schori as their presiding bishop. He called it “a fundamental scandal” and added, “I think Mrs. Jefferts Schori is a layperson. It’s not my doing. They decided.” He said that a shoplifter was “more qualified, per se,” to be a bishop than a woman was, so long as the shoplifter didn’t say that shoplifting was good, or that he was a Marxist spreading the wealth around.

Does the ABC see any hope of creating an amicable climate between the members of the Church of England who favor the ordination of women as bishops, especially the women in the church, and the likes of Vicar Geoffrey Kirk with his insulting comments? I don't.

Conservative evangelicals—which is to say fundamentalist and, as often as not, charismatic—are one of the only expanding groups in England’s otherwise dwindling church. Vaughan Roberts, the rector of an evangelical church in Oxford called St. Ebbes, told me that his own congregation had spilled over into three other locations, outside the parish structure, in five years and now amounted to nine Sunday congregations, with a total of eleven hundred people.
....

He has been “encouraged” in his mission, he says, by the example of London’s Holy Trinity Brompton, the closest thing to a megachurch in the Church of England. Holy Trinity Brompton was once a tranquil and quite traditional church. Today, as often as not, it is in full charismatic swing. It serves four thousand people, many of them twenty-somethings, at staggered Sunday services, and is said to be the wealthiest parish church in England—even without taking into account the worldwide distribution of its “Alpha Program,” which, like Vaughan’s program, leads you up a smooth path to Jesus, truth, and a cheerful Christian life.

Therein lies a mega-problem for the Archbishop of Canterbury. If enough of the Anglo-Catholics accept Rome's offer to jump the Tiber, then the numbers in the Church of England will weigh heavily on the side of the conservative evangelical, fundamentalist, sometimes charismatic church communities.

There's much more that I'd like to quote, but I've probably gone beyond fair use already. Perhaps the powers at the New Yorker will not take note of my humble blog. I urge you to take the time to read the essay. I've admired Jane Kramer's previous writing, and my admiration increases with this example of her diligent research and her graceful prose style.

H/T to The Lead for the link to the entire piece.

QUESTIONS FOR ANGLICANS/EPISCOPALIANS

Will the recent child abuse scandal out of Germany, which moves closer to Pope Benedict XVI, affect the anticipated stampede of disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians to the Roman Catholic ordinariates?

Will Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams now concern himself less with the response/reaction of the Vatican to decisions by churches in the Anglican Communion?

How will Rome's scandal affect the deliberations on the Anglican Covenant, by which certain members of the Anglican Communion seek to centralize authority in the Anglican Communion?