Occasional Papers
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“One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call” A Summary and Brief Analysis of the SCECAC Report to the Episcopal Church May 2006 Christopher Wilkins [Also available in Acrobat PDF format by clicking here.] The Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion released in April 2006 a report entitled, One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call. This report is the Episcopal Church’s most recent response to the challenges posed to it by the Windsor Report and the ongoing tensions related to the future of the Anglican Communion. The product of a special commission appointed late in 2005 by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies, “One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call” is designed to provide guidance and a start to the legislative process regarding matters raised in the Windsor Report for the Episcopal Church’s 75th General Convention, which takes place this June. Each member of the special commission serves on the Church’s Executive Council. The commission members represent a wide range of views and commitments within the Episcopal Church, and they have each demonstrated loyalty to it, and through it to the God it serves. The report is divided into seven main sections:
There follow several appendices containing relevant documents from 2003 to the present. The overarching theme of the report is that what unites us as the Episcopal Church is whatever enables us to fulfill our mission—or, better yet, what the report calls “our unity in God’s mission” (p. 3). The more mature and deep a unity we can find, create, and sustain, the more effective will be our service in support of that mission. This is why the report offers us several ways to understand the past, face the present’s tough issues, and bind ourselves more closely together in the future. Each of these is based on how it furthers that mission. The report urges us not to accept any move toward a unity or a disunity that would make its mission impossible. To avoid such a move, the report recommends that the Episcopal Church express regret that any of its actions in 2003 caused pain, but does not suggest that those actions were incorrect. Likewise, the report calls on the church to repent of acting, or even seeming to act, as though it had no need of its Anglican Communion partners, but does not suggest that its actions were otherwise wrong. The report also argues that our need for unity in God’s mission means that, of the three potential forms of covenant that the commission mentions, the one that focuses on relationships and mission at home and abroad is the one to be encouraged. This focus on action is key. It is what we do, not what we believe or what we say we do, that matters most to ourselves and to others. As was true for the earliest Christians and has been true throughout Christian history, so it remains true today. How we affect the world and those in it, and how we can do so better, will remain vital questions for the church and for us all. As its title suggests, this report roots us as a church in baptism, the Eucharist, and “our service to God’s mission in the world” (p. 2). It sees the fullest expression of our faith in that service. That service needs to focus on reconciliation, but it is by no means limited to this task. The report’s way of treating the scriptures is richly pragmatic. It encourages us to ask of the scriptures not only “what do they mean?” but also “how can we best learn from them to help us in our ministry?” The report shows that we are grounded not only in texts, but in history, including the haphazard, colonialist way in which Anglican churches developed. This history continues to affect how Anglicans interact around the world and has left wounds that Americans, especially, need to understand and continue to help heal. When we as Americans act independently, we may appear either to ignore or to condescend to those in post-colonial societies who disagree with our actions or with those of the U.S. government. To build stronger relationships and dampen ill will, we Episcopalians need to attend carefully to how our actions, along with those of our compatriots, affect others around the world, and we need to listen closely to how they are perceived. As important as these matters are, they also show how questions about gay and lesbian persons, ministries, and relationships have been changed into questions about other things. It is wise for us to notice, since the change is worrisome. It was not brought about by those who voted “yes” or “no” on Bishop Robinson’s election and on allowing dioceses to continue developing liturgies to bless same-sex unions. Most of those who voted on these questions were, and remain, faithful Episcopalians. There was, however, a small group who chose to incorporate their opposition on these matters into an ongoing effort to destabilize the Episcopal Church and even replace it in the Anglican Communion. Most Episcopalians, however they feel about the actions of our General Conventions, did not do this and do not support it. Unfortunately, the effort was amplified by some of the dynamics the Windsor Report set in motion. As “One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call” shows, the best response to this challenge is to strengthen the theologies and ministries of justice and reconciliation which the Episcopal Church and most other Anglican provinces seek to bring to those in their care, and to do so openly before the whole Communion. In any discussion about how best to care for those who disagree with its welcome to gays and lesbians, the Church needs to continue to be careful—in both senses of that term. That is, it must be both cautious and filled with care. The commission’s report shows the church being careful, and this is wise and welcome. It regrets causing pain without rejecting any healing that it has begun to bring, particularly to gays and lesbians. It seeks how best to continue with those healing actions without encouraging further divisiveness or schism. In order to do these things effectively, the report addresses questions of justice only when it has established their foundation in a shared gospel ministry of reconciliation. Thus linked, they are readily shown to be inseparable. In addressing the matter of an Anglican covenant, which the Windsor Report recommends as a way for the whole Communion to move forward together, the special commission has done an intriguing thing. Section VI of the report first offers three ways to understand this ancient term, and then asks which one best serves reconciliation, interdependence, and communion. The first way of covenant is one that would use various Anglican structures to enforce uniformity. As the commission notes, the Windsor Report has primarily this idea in mind when it speaks of covenant. The second way would set common doctrines and a confession to be used to mandate uniformity and judge innovations. The primates’ Dromantine statement and parts of the Windsor Report have this way of covenant in mind. The third way, which the Anglican Consultative Council, the Episcopal Church, and other Anglicans recommend, changes the focus from structural or confessional uniformity to one a communion bound primarily by relationships and shared missions. A covenant based on relationships and mission would help Episcopalians and other Anglicans better work together to heal the world without sacrificing provincial autonomy or our traditions of Anglican diversity, faithfulness, and tolerance. This form of covenant seems likely to help us find a comprehensive reconciliation, not just a compromise for the moment. Were it to do so, it would strengthen our communion. The SCECAC report is written so as to show that this form of covenant is the best of the three offered, since its anticipated fruits are the reconciliation and truer communion that we seek. These two things, the commission notes, will be central if the Episcopal Church’s ministries are to continue to thrive. Given the quote that the report offers from Archbishop Rowan Williams in this section (p. 23), it would appear that he favors this third way as well. Read carefully, One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call,will help lead the Episcopal Church further on its middle path between extremes, out of divisions, and toward the love of a living God. Copyright © 2006 by Via Media USA. All rights reserved. Comprehension, not Compromise Christopher I. Wilkins, Ph.D. April 21, 2006 Feast of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury The Episcopal Church’s 2006 General Convention is fast approaching. As it does so, I would encourage Episcopalians to prayerfully consider—meaning both to examine and to contemplate—the well-known statement from Richard Hooker that Via Media USA has chosen to represent its mission: "the via media is not a compromise for the sake of peace, but a comprehension for the sake of truth." As a deer longs for water and the heart for rest in God, so Anglicans long to find a via media whenever conflict arises or crisis threatens. As we seek a middle way, it is important not to take paths which might seem easy, but in the end only delay resolution of conflict or for but a short while keep crisis at bay. It is important, instead, for us to seek paths of truth, even if they are difficult. On such paths, the things that are true for each of us and for all of us, in their harmony and divergence, reveal themselves as life-giving. To move forward together in the midst of our current conflicts, we should remind ourselves of the context in which they have arisen. They, like we, have arisen in the midst of the Anglican Communion, a long-lived worldwide community of faith. Our bonds in it have not been those of a common culture or uniform doctrine. Nor should they be. Instead, our bonds come simply from the fact that, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, "we meet." United by the strife that divides us we may be. But we meet. As diverse Christian people, we meet across boundaries of culture, tradition, experience and nation. We persistently challenge each other, in and through our differences, to find what centers us as a particular part of the Christian family. When we meet, we have the opportunity to see Christ in each other in new, as well as familiar, ways. If we choose, we can meet to refresh ourselves for the ministries to which God has called us in our own times and places—even if they may seem at odds with one another. We can do so without demanding uniformity from each other, but insisting instead on two things uniformity dampens: trust and mutual respect. Why should we? Because we follow, in Christ, the Word of God whom John’s gospel tells us came into the world as a light that no darkness could comprehend, and as a truth no lie could stifle. The darkness that comes from ignorance and discord, from whatever quarters they have emerged, continues to fail to thwart God's Word among us. When we can see each other in the light of Christ, particularly when we are called to different expressions and actions in faith, we move out of darkness, and in light. The Episcopal Church's General Convention in 2006 will face again its major question concerning sexual ethics. Should loving, committed same-gender couples have their relationships and ordained ministries recognized by a church already committed to their civil rights and freedoms? At least some of those most passionate to answer either “yes” or “no” believe that those who answer differently have cast themselves out of Christian faith and holy fellowship. It is difficult to see how compromise could be possible between passions so radically divided, or on the basis of the disagreement as it has been cast between them. It strikes me as vanity to search for one. Insofar as the Windsor Report, for example, as it addresses this question and those that follow from it, is taken as a call to compromise, I fear that it is being taken amiss. Insofar as such a report can be accepted as a call to our greater comprehension of each other as Christians, respecting at once the integrity of church, conscience, and communion, I believe we allow it to take us where Christ would have us go. Being of many nations, both as the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion which it helped create, we must make our middle path broad indeed. It was originally. Among the English who invented it under Elizabeth I, the via media served to prevent further destructive conflict between those who were drawn to the competing Christian gospels of that day, whether from Rome, Geneva, or even further afield. It was also a means by which the monarch, and with her the state, could faithfully cease, as she put it, “to try men’s souls.” Having learned not to consider only one Christian path to be authentic, Anglicans from the very beginning have issued a prophetic challenge to those who would divide the faithful according to any single group’s peculiar exclusions and designs. To refuse this divisiveness, we must meet each other as equals on a via media. This path calls us to cherish each other in a faith that informs and exceeds the particular questions of a particular moment. In such faith, we refuse the false witnesses who say that only those who believe as they do are to be considered saved. By such faith, we focus not on the pain that others may bring into our world, or we into theirs. Instead, we concentrate on the healing we can bring, overcoming not just ignorance and discord, but a host of other ills. We learn to call this grace, and to be in awe of God’s life-changing providence manifest through it. We need to see each other in Christ's light—that is, see Christ's light in others' faces. We should not ask what to give up in order to be seen as faithful. We must ask, instead, what we may best express of ourselves in order to show forth integrity in whatever faith has come, by God's grace, to us. We may differ, but do not have to turn our differences into matters for conflict or compromise. Insofar as we can see differing people in our church striving to discern the paths that Christ has illumined for them, we respect both them and ourselves. We do so by the grace of God who comprehends us all—and whom, when among us, darkness does not overwhelm. Dr. Wilkins is the facilitator of Via Media USA.
Email: ciwilkins@viamediausa.org. On the web: http://viamediausa.org
Via Media USA - Faithful Stewards Via Media USA was founded in 2004 to preserve and protect the faith, unity, and vitality of the Episcopal Church. Via Media USA is an alliance of grass-roots voluntary regional organizations without endowments, and dependent on supporter's contributions. We hope to act so that all those who want an Episcopal Church will have one. We are called to craft a unifying middle way, continuing to be a church of the crucified and risen Christ. Such a church is founded on a unity of the sacraments God has given to us, and a unity that celebrates the differences and abundant love in which God has created us. In this truly living church to which God has guided us, we come to the altar to receive the Eucharist--side by side by side. In receiving these sacramental gifts we are reminded that only God knows the final truth of things and that for this reason if for no other, all shall be well. We return from the altar, filled with the God-given dignity of being fully human and redeemed, able to understand and be free and distinct individuals as well as members of thriving, faithful communities. In our home dioceses, our hearts are broken as we watch individuals and congregations pour out contempt on our beloved church -- by removing the word "Episcopal" from signs, directing funds to other groups that once were earmarked for the Episcopal Church or ERD, rebuffing us when we propose reconciliation and amending diocesan constitutions to nullify actions of General Convention. While some have difficulty understanding our sense of urgency, many of our dioceses have passed resolutions saying that they no longer accede to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. One bishop has warned clergy that "the day after" General Convention 2006 they will no longer be part of the Episcopal Church. Another has requested that his diocese be placed under another province's jurisdiction. In the midst of predictions of "realignment" and pronouncements that we are already two churches, our groups struggle to be a voice for that traditional Episcopal practice of the via media. In the context of the actions and statements of some conservative leaders here and abroad, the topics discussed at our September Via Media USA steering committee meeting are those that reasonable and prudent individuals who are committed to the Episcopal Church must discuss. If those who have threatened to realign were to act on statements they have made, schism and abandonment of the communion of the Episcopal Church would then have taken place in their jurisdictions. Episcopalians in those jurisdictions would need to move quickly, within the structures of church's canons and constitution, to rebuild. While we pray that our unity can be restored, this threat of schism in our dioceses troubles us deeply. As faithful stewards we must be prepared to care for those people and things entrusted to the Church in our home regions should the divisions occur. Our wish is for a church able to celebrate a diversity of theological opinions. Leaders in the Episcopal Church who conform to the constitution and canons of this church and respect the polity of its General Convention, under whose authority they lead their portion of the flock of Christ, should have no cause for concern arising from our planning. Those who do not, particularly if they should persist in breaking their vows and separating their portions of the Episcopal Church from the rest of it, may take such good counsel as seems best to them. Our efforts will be to serve, as best we can, those who wish to remain connected to the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. Via Media USA strives to help the Episcopal Church be healed, whole, and welcoming to all. To that end we work, and pray we work with grace. We welcome others with that same goal to join us in our work. (C) Copyright November 2005 Via Media USA. Further distribution is permitted so
long as this notice is included. All Rights Reserved.
A Message from the Facilitator, April 25, 2005 Mindful of Christ’s words that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them” (Mt. 18:20), we should view with a high degree of concern the situation that has developed in the Diocese of Connecticut. Many on all sides of this matter have pointed out that this is a time for prayer and for the quietness needed in which to hear God’s voice and discern, individually and together, God’s will for us. The facts, it appears, are thus: six rectors, along with their vestries, are defying the authority of the Episcopal Church USA, and of their diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith. These rectors—the Rev. Allyn Benedict of Christ Episcopal Church in Watertown, the Rev. Mark Hansen of St. John’s Church in Bristol, the Rev. Ronald Gauss of Bishop Seabury Church in Groton, the Rev. Gilbert Wilkes of Christ and the Epiphany Church in East Haven, the Rev. Christopher Leighton of St. Paul’s Church in Darien, and the Rev. Don Helmandollar of Trinity Church in Bristol—may face removal for their actions. In a dispute concerning Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight, the rectors and parishes have apparently sought alternative episcopal oversight under the direction of bishops they consider orthodox, in a way that severs all ties with their diocese and its bishop. This contradicts the Windsor Report’s recommendations and numerous understandings among bishops of the Anglican Communion, beginning with agreements reached over a century ago concerning jurisdiction. It also violates the Constitution of the Episcopal Church, which does not allow for the transfer of parishes to another diocese unless the parish abuts the other diocese and unless both dioceses and both bishops agree to the transfer. Consequently, Bishop Smith, having jurisdiction over these rectors and parishes, is prepared, on the advice of the diocesan Standing Committee, to act on his understanding of his canonical obligations to remove from office rectors who have abandoned the communion of this church, and hence abandoned their cures. A last-ditch meeting on April 18, 2005, apparently made no progress toward resolution. While none of us knows exactly what will happen next, these events have taken on an air of inevitability. As I think about them, nothing grows in me so much as a profound unease, as it should whenever people who gather in Christ’s name find themselves in places of irreconcilability. In my experience, intransigence breeds intransigence, but the prophet’s call to stand firm in faith remains. Since, however, the greatest part of faith is charity, we hope that all involved in this dispute can stand firm primarily in charity, seeking with goodwill the reconciliation and community that is Christ’s gift to a broken, but by no means helpless, world. From time to time, a conflict such as this arrives at that sublime state of intractability where cries of “Let us pray” give way to “Here I stand and can do no other.” In such a case, it is important to remember that the conflict of good things has the ancient name of tragedy, and much wisdom has emerged from its study. As the German philosopher and theologian G.W.F. Hegel noted, tragedy is the conflict of two or more goods, not the morality play or comedy (in the sense of Dante’s commedia) that is too often made of the conflict of good and evil. This is why to witness tragedy—and to witness to tragedy—brings not only poignancy but catharsis. By contrast, a triumph over evil brings not so much a release as a sense of relief or, at its worst, the Schadenfreude of a revenge fantasy fulfilled. Insofar as a victory over evil brings regrets, we grieve for the good who were lost, whose sacrifice for a nobler cause is tragic. Trading the good of preserving my life for the good of preserving others’ may or may not have been necessary, but it is always a tragedy. With such thoughts in mind, it should be clear to us that a tragic situation developed in these six parishes in Connecticut long before they felt called to stand firm against their church and bishops for, among other things, ordaining and consecrating “unchaste homosexuals,” as they put it in a recent letter to Bishop Smith. It has been developing, in my view, throughout these rectors’ tenures, as they have estranged their parishioners from the Episcopal Church. Any good that they have done in their ministries has been wrapped in an effort to build walls of separation between themselves and any of their fellow Episcopalians who do not agree with them—and to build walls between the Episcopal Church and other provinces of the Anglican Communion. Actions that make walls such as these impregnable or that make our differences irreconcilable, are, as our Presiding Bishop has said, faithless. They are, that is, acts of despair. One way to think of despair is as the refusal of charity. It is to cast away God’s caritas, gift of the Spirit and sign thereby of God’s presence. When others refuse to allow us to be present to them as God has called us to be, they not only reject our humanity, but also the Spirit of God, replacing it in their hearts with an idol they have made of their own understanding of what God wants, what God has said, or what all must confess to be saved. This is, in my view, what these six rectors have done and led others to do. As a consequence, their ministries, at this time, are nothing so much as efforts to protect for themselves what no one is trying to take away, and to keep for themselves things that are not theirs alone. Their ministries only appear threatened to them because they do not hold them securely with God—with caritas before all, and with malice toward none—but with the frailty of human hands, slipping. Those who lead in such a way as to perpetuate conflict and to thrive on its spoils do the most damage to those who most closely follow them. We can predict this with historic and, I suspect, mathematical certainty. In the end, that is, it is the parishioners of St. John’s (Bristol), Bishop Seabury (Groton), Christ Episcopal Church (Watertown), Christ and the Epiphany (East Haven), St. Paul’s (Darien), and Trinity (Bristol) who will suffer most, whatever happens. The saddest thing of all is that they may continue, whatever happens, to place themselves beyond the church’s aid. Yes, indeed, let us pray. Christopher
All God’s Children Love the Bible - by: The Rev. Rick Matters The fundamental disagreement among us is over what the Bible is and is not as the inspired Word of God and as the book of the Church. What continues to amaze me, as one who spoke and voted in favor of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, is how I am considered to have forsaken the Bible and, for many in the American Anglican Council, no longer Christian. I still believe Jesus is God's Son Incarnate and my faith remains Trinitarian
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