Category Archives: Anglican

Occupy Trinity Church

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This isn’t going to end well, and once again, the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church is not acquitting itself particularly well.

I’ve blogged about the relationship between Trinity and the Occupy Wall Street protestors before. Things have only gotten more tense in the last month. There was actually something of a moment of grace last week, when retired Bishop George Packer and his wife, accompanied by the Rector of Trinity and his wife, visited the OWS encampment. After conversation, many of the protestors attended services at Trinity. Read about it here.

Unfortunately, that was only a temporary break in the growing tension. On Friday, Bishop of New York Mark Sisk and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori weighed in, urging the protestors to abandon their demands that Trinity allow them use of a portion of Duarte Square for their encampment.

These events brought front page coverage in The New York Times and increasing debate among Episcopalians about the controversy. Elisabeth Drescher offers her perspective here.

Today, Bishop Packard, who has been advocating more loudly on behalf of the protestors, was arrested for entering the disputed area of Duarte Square.

As Drescher points out in her essay:

Trinity Wall Street and the Episcopal Church are, it seems, trying to maintain a delicate balance in their approach to Occupy Wall Street, and their consistent ministry to participants in the movement is laudable. Their active chaplaincy, preaching, and material support has been a powerful reminder of the moral role that churches and other religious groups continue to play even as institutional religion becomes more and more irrelevant in everyday life. Indeed, Trinity Wall Street and many other Episcopal Churchcommunities, have made clear that “being church” is much more than maintaining a building where fewer and fewer people gather to worship for an hour or so on Sundays. They have illustrated the Christian understanding of the call of the faithful to be Christ’s body in the world throughout the Occupy protests, and this has made me proud to be an Episcopalian.

Unfortunately, with the responses from Sisk and Jefforts Schori, as well as the ongoing response from Trinity, the Episcopal Church seems once again to be coming down on the side of the powers that be. For Trinity, that might not be surprising given the amount of real estate they own in the area. I also know well how difficult it is to maintain program, ministry, and perspective in the midst of ongoing protests, so I am not unsympathetic with the position Trinity’s leadership finds itself in. But I believe there ought to be some room for compromise, some creative response to the situation that would begin to shape a vision of what church might be in the twenty-first century.

I find it especially troubling that all those goes on as I prepare a sermon on Mary, and reflect on her words in the Magnificat:

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

Bishop Packard’s blog is probably well-worth following.

So how’s that restructuring working out, Chuck?

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For those of us who are Episco-geeks, news this week of a divorce between the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) is like the Rose Bowl for Wisconsin Badger fans–we’re lovin’ it!

But for those who aren’t, here’s a bit of explanation, and I’m doing it off the top of my head, so chances are I’ll get some details wrong, but probably not the overall gist.

The issue of the ordination of gays and lesbians has been around for quite some time. Conservatives bristled at the prospect, even before Gene Robinson’s election as Bishop of New Hampshire. Chuck Murphy was Rector of a large parish, All Saints’ Pawley’s Island. From encounters with members, children who grew up there, and seminarians who came out of that parish, it was clear to me that All Saints’ commitment to Anglicanism was tenuous at best (My wife once had a student who was raised there ask her what the Book of Common Prayer was).

Murphy retired and at some point was ordained Bishop by the Archbishop of Rwanda, who was deeply opposed to developments in the Episcopal Church. The AMiA developed something of a parallel structure to the Episcopal Church, attracting some conservative parishes and planting congregations in various places, hoping to pick off disgruntled conservative Episcopalians (this was especially true in South Carolina).

Now, it seems, Murphy and the AMiA have run into conflict with the Anglican Church of Rwanda. Apparently, they are no longer connected. Murphy was called out for insubordination and the like and has gone his separate way. The story can be followed in various places, including Episcopal Cafe.

It may be that as George Conger puts it, “It’s just a sad, sad case all around,” Conger said. “There are no doctrinal or theological issues. It’s not about women priests or homosexuality or race. It’s entirely about egos.”

Here’s an article from Christianity Today on the break.

Apparently, they will be seeking a “council of archbishops” who will provide them with some sort of concrete link to the Anglican Communion. We’ll see how that works out.

I put “restructuring” in the title of this blog post, because this division is really about restructuring. Murphy and others, including those American clergy who sought episcopal ordination in the Anglican Church of Nigeria, or the Southern Cone, or Uganda, were (and in many cases, still are) attempting a radical restructuring of Anglicanism in North America. But as the AMiA example, demonstrates, restructuring is a difficult thing.

On one level, I have no problem with people seeking out like-minded people in other countries to help build institutions and to provide some legitimacy. I thought it somewhat odd, and particularly in the case of Rwanda, which, when Murphy was ordained Bishop, was only a few years after the genocide and had enormous issues of its own to deal with. I always thought that the Americans were exploiting a church, and a nation, that was weak and vulnerable. I also found it ironic, even tragic, that Southern descendants of slaveowners, and parishes created by slaveowners, were  looking to Africans for authority. In other words, I thought it all a mess.

But now, it seems, we see what it really is all about, and once more, the loser is the Church of Jesus Christ. I hope that whatever conversations occur in the Episcopal Church about restructuring develop in more productive directions. May God have mercy on all of us.

 

Covenant, Schmovenant

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Back in the news with an Advent letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Primates and Moderators. After talking about his travels, especially in Africa, he turns again to the matter of the Anglican Covenant, and the letter turns into another plea for its adoption. In his efforts to convince those opposed as well as the uncertain of the merits of this documents, Williams’ arguments become more shrill and less convincing.

Tobias Haller is on the case here and here. Haller quotes Williams’ plea that the covenant is needed to provide a united front in our conversations with other religious bodies, especially the Roman Catholic and Orthodox. Curiously, Haller does not include in his quotation what I consider the most telling, sentence from that section:

“if the moratoria are ignored and the Covenant suspected, what are the means by which we maintain some theological coherence as a Communion and some personal respect and understanding as a fellowship of people seeking to serve Christ?

Theological coherence? Anglican theological coherence? What can Williams possibly mean when his own Church of England is so deeply divided between Evangelicals on one end of the continuum and Anglo-Catholics on the other. Those differences are not chiefly about liturgy. They are about theology. One of the great blessings of Anglicanism is the space it has provided over the centuries for theological difference–for different approaches and perspectives, for those of a more Protestant, even Calvinist bent, and those who find in the Catholic theological tradition rich resources for faith and life.

In fact, the Covenant aims not at theological coherence, but at limiting the provinces’ expressions of what they think the gospel means in their particular contexts.

Andrew Gerns points out that the Archbishops’ travels and interactions with Anglicans in other countries succeeded in the absence of a Covenant, that there can be communion without covenant.

There have been more developments concerning the Covenant. In Canada, the House of Bishops has discussed it again. Archbishop Fred Hiltz expressed his reservations about the punitive measures in Article IV:

My personal concern is what happens when the direction you move in is not in accordance with the standards of the communion. You’re out. It does not end on a note of restoration or hope, so I say it falls short of the Gospel

 

So why not allow some experimentation with restructuring?

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There’s been considerable debate in the Episcopal Church over the past few months about restructuring the church. The problems are clear. We can’t financially sustain the current structure of national church offices, provinces, dioceses, and parishes as they are currently conceived, and it’s not clear that the current structure, even if it were well-grounded financially, serves the current mission needs of the church.

So what to do? Bishop Sauls has offered his proposal, about which I’ve already made comment. Others have also weighed in. Currently, my friend Crusty Old Dean is putting forth a very thoughtful and provocative set of proposals: part I, part II, part III, part IV (I knew him before he ascended the heights of academe). I urge everyone interested in the future direction of the church to read carefully what he is proposing.

At the same time, in the Diocese of South Carolina, a certain restructuring is already taking place. Bishop Mark Lawrence recently issued quit-claim deeds to the parishes in the diocese, essentially granting them property rights to parish property (which canonically is owned by or held in trust by, the diocese). This move has aroused considerable anxiety and outrage among “institutional” (most of whom are progressive) Episcopalians. Mark Harris comments on developments here and here.

I find this response quite interesting. Given that the diocese as an institution is a relic of an earlier age, that the ownership of property is one of the most contentious (and expensive) issues in the conflicts within the church, I wonder what the harm is with making this change? It may go against the constitution and canons, but perhaps they ought to be changed, and indeed, Bishop Lawrence may be right that the current understanding is something of an innovation. Why use the heavy cudgel of authority and constitution to force compliance or membership, when we might all be better served going our separate ways.

One of the chief arguments in favor of restructuring is to allow more horizontal relationships across diocesan and provincial boundaries. Might there be a way that people who share theological perspectives might found solace, strength, and comfort, by creating bonds with like-minded people across the church, at the same time remaining under the umbrella of the Episcopal Church? In a sense, that’s what earlier efforts at providing alternative episcopal oversight to parishes that struggled with their bishop’s perspective were meant to do. No, it’s not a perfect solution. But the question may finally come down to whether the only things that unite us as a denomination are property and the Church Pension Fund.

 

Rethinking and Restructuring the Anglican Communion

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Various dioceses (Eastern Oregon, California, and the executive council of the Episcopal Church have weighed in, urging rejection of the Anglican Covenant at General Convention next summer.

In New Zealand, the Maori have rejected it as well. Because of the complicated structure of the Anglican Church in New Zealand and Polynesia, that decision means that the province as a whole rejects it as well.

In the Church of England, dioceses are also rejecting it (St. Edmondsbury and Ipswich, Birmingham).

In fact, there is considerable discussion about the Covenant both here and abroad.

Michael Poon, in Rebooting the Anglican Communication, asks three important questions:

1. To Church leaders in sub-Saharan Africa: Do strong protests against Western decadence in fact reveal a deep anxiety about ecclesial identity?

 

2. Is GAFCON the only valid expression of Anglican evangelicalism?

 

3. Are North American Christians in fact using the churches worldwide as theaters for their domestic religious wars?

For Poon, the heart of the problem is communication: “Sound bites mask private ambitions and secular undercurrents that in fact shape our disputes.” His analysis of the situation among Anglicans suggests that we mirror the political discourse in secular culture. Of course, he is correct that “communion” points to a deeper relationship, a deeper reality, and whatever Anglican Communion ought to be, it ought to embrace and incarnate the mystery of God’s love.

Tobias Haller spoke at a meeting of the Diocese of Albany on Anglican Disunion: The Issues behind “the Issue.” He outlines there what he calls the “Anglican Triad:” humility, provinciality, and variety, distinguishing these three characteristics from the “Instruments of Communion” stressed in the Anglican Covenant and elsewhere as providing the unity of the Communion.

Savi Hensman points to an earlier attempt to define what unites us as Anglican. The 2005 Anglican Consultative Council said this:

Nourished by Scripture and Sacrament, we pledge ourselves to:

1. Recognise Jesus in each other’s contexts and lives
2. Support one another in our participation in God’s mission
3. Encourage expressions of our new life in Christ
4. Meet to share common purpose and explore differences and disagreements.
5. Be willing to change in response to critique and challenge from others
6. Celebrate our strengths and mourn over our failures.
7. Share equitably our God-given resources.
8. Work together for the sustainability of God’s creation.
9. Live into the promise of God’s reconciliation for ourselves and for the world.

We make this covenant in the promise of our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ.

All of this discussion has to do with our relationships with Anglicans world-wide. Meanwhile, here at home, there are lively and creative conversations taking place around restructuring the church. Most of the latter have to do with de-emphasizing the centralizing structures in order to focus on ministry and mission at the local level, and create ways of communicating and relating horizontally. The impetus for this discussion is partly financial, partly in response to changing demographics, and partly a function of a rapidly changing culture.

It seems to me that what is taking place locally and horizontally is also, in some ways, occurring globally. The Anglican Covenant was an attempt to respond to one set of elements in our rapidly changing world–globalization and the communications revolution–but did so without reference to some of the other elements in the changing context even though those elements were also driving much of the conflict (non-official relationships among like-minded people throughout the world, for example).

I would be curious to see how all of those folk currently ruminating on re-structuring in the Episcopal Church would imagine re-structuring of the Anglican Communion.

The ABC on the KJV

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There was a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Authorized Version in Westminster Abbey this past week. Queen Elizabeth was in attendance. Rowan Williams preached a sermon that is worth reading.

He alludes to the problems inherent in translation and the importance of interpretation but he is much more interested in the role of the text in the life of the community:

But what the 1611 translators grasped was that hearing the Word of God was a lifelong calling that had to be undertaken in the company of other readers and was never something that left us where we started.

 

it was meant to be read aloud. And that means that it was meant to be part of an event, a shared experience. Gathered as a Christian community, the parish would listen, in the context of praise, reflection and instruction, to scripture being read: it provided the picture of a whole renewed universe within which all the other activities made sense. It would not be immediately intelligible by any means, but it marked out the territory of God’s work of grace.

 

The Guardian’s report on the celebration is here.

Williams reminds us of the open and unfinished nature of translation, to use other language, that translation always involves interpretation. That means scripture always eludes our efforts to capture and contain it, to define and fix its meaning. More importantly, he also urges us to take seriously our obligation to devote our lives to engaging the text, wrestling with its meanings. As Williams puts it, scripture invites us “to a pilgrimage further and further into the mysteries of [God’s] mind and love.”

An outsider’s perspective on Occupy Wall Street and Religion

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From Michael Greenberg on The New York Review of Books (oddly the post on the website has gone missing):

organizers had been in talks with some of New York’s religious leaders for at least two weeks, negotiating support for the movement around the city. On Tuesday, coincidentally, they had been planning “a move” as one organizer put it to me. “The clergy would give us [an alternative] space to de-concentrate Zuccotti, to lessen the need for Zuccotti, to diminish its importance.”

According to Ellick, 1,400 “faith-based leaders in and around New York” were throwing their support behind Occupy Wall Street. When I asked him what defined a “leader,” he answered, “anyone with a constituency.” But what did support mean? For Ellick and John Merz, an Episcopal priest at Ascension Church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, it meant opening church kitchens and giving protesters a place to shower and sleep “even though we’re not a shelter.” It would involve public support as well, talking to the press and urging parishioners to join the protesters in their various anti-corporate actions.

And his take on Trinity Church, Wall Street:

Trinity Church, the historic Episcopal church located a block south of Zuccotti Park, had been cautious in its support of the occupation, allowing protesters to hold meetings on its steps and, on occasion, use its bathrooms. Trinity is one of the largest landowners in the city, and its main business is the management of its properties, among which is a large open space on Canal Street and Sixth Avenue. The space abuts Duarte Square, a half-acre city park. Organizers had been in negotiation with the church to expand their encampment to the Canal Street space. Despite pressure from more radical Episcopal priests from other parishes in New York, Trinity ultimately decided to forbid access to its land. One priest I spoke with who preferred not to be identified, was indignant at Trinity’s decision—“Its meekness,” he called it, “its fear of antagonizing authorities who are responsible for upholding so many of its privileges. Let’s face it,” he added, “they’re more a corporation than a place of faith. They have fewer parishioners than I do.” He said that meetings at Trinity had been heated. “This is a basic challenge to our values. If we don’t support Occupy Wall Street, what do we stand for?”

Trinity has made its views clear in a letter and in its acquiescence in the clearing of Duarte Square, property owned by Trinity, but leased to another group.

Meanwhile in London, the St. Paul’s controversy continues.

 

Numerical Decline and the local congregation

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The dramatic numbers reported last week continue to reverberate across the Episcopal Church.

From Jim Naughton’s lede on Mariann Bude:

I’d ask you to read Michelle Boorstein’s story about the situation that confronts the bishop and the church, and then look at the Q and As in The Post and the Examiner. Several things struck me as I listened to her give these interviews. She is unabashed about the need to rebuild the church. Unlike some of our leaders, she does not theologize our decline. She is also clear in her opinion that the church does not lack a heart for mission. Rather, it lacks capacity because so many of its congregations are weak and struggling simply to keep their doors open. It makes no sense (this is my opinion, not hers) to tell these people that if they look inward they will flounder, but if they look outward they will thrive, because they may be in no position to look effectively in either direction.

It’s hard to focus on mission and outreach when all of a congregation’s energy is going into survival. Or to put it another way, given how thinly stretched resources are in a typical congregation, resources in terms of staff, clergy, and volunteers, it’s almost impossible to do things well, let alone innovate, when so much effort is expended on making sure the doors are open.

Donald Romanik says much the same thing, challenging us to focus on the local, not the national or international:

for the overwhelming majority of members of our congregations, the Episcopal Church is equivalent to their local faith community and the mission and ministry of that local congregation is measured by the impact it makes on the people it touches both on Sunday, and, more importantly, throughout the week.

As leaders of our local faith communities, our primary responsibility is to bring the message of Jesus and his healing presence to our immediate surroundings and engage our neighbors and friends in the work of God’s reconciliation in the world. And we do this through a constant cycle of prayer, worship, education, fellowship, outreach, and evangelism – that awful “e-word.” The Episcopal Church has a powerful message of hope to a broken world. Likewise, our local faith communities also share this important message.

I suppose I began my annual report to the parish with those same statistics because I wanted to provide some larger context for our struggles at Grace, but also, at least implicitly, to remind people of the great resources we have at Grace to reach out into the world, and that we are already doing many of those very things, including evangelism.

Pastors need to be challenged and disrupted

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Patheos is running an online symposium on the future of seminary education. Like higher education in general, graduate education for clergy is in a crisis–rising tuition, rising debt for students, shrinking enrollments.

Reading the various entries brought home to me how inadequate my education at Harvard Divinity School was. We knew it was at the time; HDS offered very little in the way of courses in the practice of ministry. But it finally dawned on me that there was an even larger disconnect. I remember thinking at the time  I was doing my field ed in a struggling mainline parish in Boston’s Back Bay that it seemed that the only people attending church were elderly or so disfunctional because of mental illness, substance abuse, or other forms of abuse, that what we were learning at HDS had no relevance in the pews or on the streets.

Fifteen years in the south were somewhat deceptive. Attending church was still culturally acceptable, even expected. It was easy to imagine that the Church could survive, perhaps even thrive in the American landscape. I remember how surprised I was when I began teaching at Sewanee to find seminarians who had come from suburban churches and were expecting to return to similar congregations where they would face no greater challenge than making sure acolytes were wearing black shoes. It seemed like we were still in the 1950s. Sometimes I wonder how many of those students I taught are still in the priesthood and whether their education has prepared them well for the challenges facing the church in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

I wonder whether seminaries, by their very nature blind students and faculty to the reality of the outside world. For denominational seminaries, even those in the throes of survival struggle, there still may be a sense that if we can just get it right, the institution will survive. I know that for many who enter the ordination process in the Episcopal Church, think of it not as an ongoing challenge, but only as a series of hoops through which to jump on one’s way to the promised land of a a settled cure somewhere. The ordination is designed to create clergy invested in the denomination as it stands, because the promise of an well-paying job and a secure pension are the pot at the end of the rainbow.

The most recent entry in the symposium comes from Kurt Fredrickson of Fuller Theological Seminary, who advocates for those institutions “to serve and resource the whole church.” But the most compelling thing he said is the phrase that appears as the title of this blog post: “Pastors need to be challenged and disrupted.”

I think that’s exactly right, and more true for denominational seminaries than for non-denominational ones or for divinity schools. In the latter, students will be challenged and disrupted by the encounter with students from other religious traditions. In the former, the tendency is to do little more than indoctrinate students in the denominational culture, which by any measure, is in radical decline.