Bishop Doyle of Texas assesses +Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter and PB Schori’s Response

Bishop C. Andrew (Andy) Doyle of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas has written a letter to the Diocese concerning the Archbishop of Canterbury's May 28, 2010 Pentecost letter to the Anglican Communion. In Bishop Doyle's letter, dated June 4, 2010, he also discusses the response to the Archbishop contained in a June 2, 2010 pastoral letter written by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. In this article, I will relate how it seems to me Bishop Doyle understates the seriousness of the Archbishop's concerns for the future of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. I will also say how I think he understates the severity of the conflict between the views of the Archbishop and those expressed by TEC's Presiding Bishop.

   

Bishop Doyle on the Archbishop's letter

   

Bishop Doyle expresses confidence that the actions taken by the Archbishop do not change life or ministry in the Diocese of Texas or his relationship with the Archbishop. Although correct in the sense that the changes do not stem from the Archbishop's actions so much as the actions in TEC that resulted in them, Bishop Doyle is not correct in thinking relationships have not been changed by TEC's actions. Regarding his initiatives calling for non-participation by TEC representatives in Communion activities related to faith and order and ecumenical relations, Archbishop Rowan is clear as to the reason: TEC is insistent on engaging in what "the representative bodies of the Communion have repeatedly pleaded should not be done." TEC is thereby exceeding, in the words of the Archbishop, "what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice." The Archbishop's position was stated even more pointedly by Canon Kenneth Kearon of the Anglican Communion Office at a press conference during the recent Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada when he said that in the act of consecrating Mary Glasspool, "it is clear that The Episcopal Church does not share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion as expressed through the Instruments of Communion time and time again."

   

Is it possible that the Diocese of Texas can be distinguished from the regnant majority of TEC in its determination to disregard the acceptable limits of diversity? At one time, this might have been argued. Currently however, it must be remembered that while Bishop Doyle did not consent to the consecration of Mary Glasspool, the Standing Committee of the Diocese did.¹ In addition, at the 2009 General Convention, the diocese's deputies were evenly split on resolution D025 (approving the consecration of noncelibate homosexual bishops), with two deputies voting for and two against in both the clerical and lay orders. On C056 (approving the development of liturgies for same-sex blessings), the lay deputies were divided two for and two against. A majority of the clerical deputies voted no on C056 but Suffragan Bishop Rayford High voted in favor. At the 2010 Diocesan Council, a resolution was adopted according honor to same-sex relationships and asserting that God is made known in and through them.² Although the Diocese of Texas can still be distinguished as more moderate than a number of others, drawing meaningful distinctions concerning responses to what the Communion has requested has become more problematic.

   

Although Bishop Doyle says that the Archbishop's proposals for representatives of TEC to step down from positions in various Communion bodies are intended to further the objective of achieving unity, he does not go into the Archbishop's reasoning. The Archbishop's reasoning is expressed not only in the Pentecost letter but in his earlier reflection "Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future" (July 2009, following the 2009 General Convention). Bishop Doyle's references to the Archbishop's actions seem almost to apologize for the Archbishop's having found it necessary to take the steps he has taken. "Rightly or wrongly," Bishop Doyle believes, the Archbishop "is trying to help." The Archbishop, he says, "is being forced to act." This way of stating things does not seem calculated to express confidence in the Archbishop's reasoning, much less endorse the actions that result from it.

   

Bishop Doyle writes repeatedly and enthusiastically of diversity. His letter contains twelve occurrences of the word or its variants, usually without elaboration as to the kind or kinds of diversity being spoken of. Bishop Doyle does not mention, however, that a key element of the Archbishop's letter is his reiteration that there are limits to diversity that is acceptable in the Communion and that his proposals for limiting the Communion roles of representatives of TEC and certain other provinces simply confirm that TEC has exceeded the acceptable limits.

   

The Presiding Bishop's rejoinder

   

Further light is cast on Bishop Doyle's regard for the Archbishop's letter by his comparison of it with the very critical letter written by Presiding Bishop Schori in response. Bishop Doyle emphasizes not the striking contrasts but what he sees as themes common to the Archbishop's letter and the one written by the Presiding Bishop. Bishop Doyle appears to believe that they want essentially the same things for the Anglican Communion. Under a heading "Same yet Different," Bishop Doyle finds sameness in a common hope and longing for a common mission and ministry, and differences that largely relate to matters of "style, culture and strategy about how we move forward together."

   

In her letter the Presiding Bishop conveys the belief that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a deficient understanding of Acts 2 and Pentecost and that he is participating in the imposition of colonialist cultural excesses and doing spiritual violence to a contextual Christianity. Bishop Doyle is silent about these accusations. He does not mention the Presiding Bishop's expression of "distress" at the Archbishop's action removing TEC representatives from Communion bodies or her related accusations of "double-mindedness" and "failure of nerve." He does not mention her statement that the Archbishop's letter represents a troubling push toward centralized authority.

   

Bishop Doyle states that the Presiding Bishop "represents well the Episcopal Church on the matters of sexuality." Does this expression of a favorable view of the Presiding Bishop's position indicate that Bishop Doyle will ultimately come on board with it, notwithstanding the course he took regarding Mary Glasspool?

   

In contrast to Bishop Doyle's perspective that the differences relate to matters of style, culture and strategy, the Rev. Dr. Philip W. Turner characterizes Bishop Schori's response to the Archbishop as "heated" and intended "to call into question both the probity of the Archbishop and his authority to respond as he has."³ The Rev. Professor Christopher Seitz has critiqued in detail the Presiding Bishop's understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.⁴ Most recently, the Rev. Dr. Andrew Goddard emphasizes that the differences are deeper than just ecclesiological and relate also to pneumatology and theology. Regarding the Presiding Bishop's response, Dr. Goddard says⁵,

   

The understanding of how the Spirit leads us into all truth has become divorced from the plain sense of Scripture, the wisdom of Christian tradition and the mutual discernment of the contemporary church. Even if TEC were right on issues of sexuality, the problem with its approach in relation to ecclesiology and pneumatology is that it renders the church catholic incapable of being able to heed the Johannine warning and injunction – "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 Jn 4.1). Its refusal to show gracious restraint and its defence of this refusal if accepted would render Anglicanism as a global communion unable to obey Paul's commands to "Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil" (1 Thess 5.21-2) . . . .

   

But we still can have a common mission, right?

   

As noted, Bishop Doyle maintains that the Presiding Bishop strives, along with Archbishop Williams, for a common mission. Speaking of his many contacts with primates and bishops from around the world, he emphasizes that the Diocese of Texas is "increasing our mission and outreach locally and globally." Among other things, he maintains that those who agree with the direction of TEC desire to join with other Anglicans globally in mission.

   

To know what to make of the desire to maintain a common mission while rejecting the repeated pleas of the representative bodies of the Communion, it is necessary to consider the sense in which "mission" is being used. In one sense, Anglicans can engage in common mission with the Rotary Club. More than that, Archbishop Rowan has been clear that Anglicans can and should do things for the care of God's poor and vulnerable even in the face of sharp division.

   

But at a deeper level, mission that is distinctively Christian cannot be unaffected by the theological divisions that are manifest when the Presiding Bishop's letter is held up against the Archbishop's. At that deeper level mission is not unaffected but in fact damaged. As the Archbishop's letter puts it: "To maintain outward unity at a formal level while we are convinced that the divisions are not only deep but damaging to our local mission is not a good thing." It makes little sense to say that TEC has exceeded the acceptable limits to diversity within Anglicanism, but that this makes no difference to the Church's mission. At issue specifically is the impact on mission on what the Archbishop calls recognizability. In his "Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future" reflection mentioned above, he said the following:

   

When a local church seeks to respond to a new question, to the challenge of possible change in its practice or discipline in the light of new facts, new pressures, or new contexts, as local churches have repeatedly sought to do, it needs some way of including in its discernment the judgement of the wider Church. Without this, it risks becoming unrecognisable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe. . . . This is not some piece of modern bureaucratic absolutism, but the conviction of the Church from its very early days.

   

The Anglican Covenant

   

Bishop Doyle also expresses his belief that there are those who agree with the direction of TEC who also desire to affirm the Anglican Covenant. Presumably anticipating an objection, Bishop Doyle volunteers that there is no inconsistency here. But there is inconsistency. By the choices it has already made, TEC has demonstrated its unwillingness to adhere to the undertakings and commitments of the Covenant. As observed by The Anglican Communion Institute in September 2009⁶,

   

An Anglican church cannot simultaneously commit itself through the Anglican Covenant to shared discernment and reject that discernment; to interdependence and then act independently; to accountability and remain determined to be unaccountable. If the battle over homosexuality in The Episcopal Church is truly over, then so is the battle over the Anglican Covenant in The Episcopal Church, at least provisionally. As Christians, we live in hope that The Episcopal Church will at some future General Convention reverse the course to which it has committed itself, but we acknowledge the decisions that already have been taken. These decisions and actions run counter to the shared discernment of the Communion and the recommendations of the Instruments of Communion implementing this discernment. They are, therefore, also incompatible with the express substance, meaning, and committed direction of the first three Sections of the proposed Anglican Covenant. As a consequence, only a formal overturning by The Episcopal Church of these decisions and actions could place the church in a position capable of truly assuming the Covenant's already articulated commitments. Until such time, The Episcopal Church has rejected the Covenant commitments openly and concretely, and her members and other Anglican churches within the Communion must take this into account.

   

Similar conclusions are drawn by the Rev. Dr. Andrew Goddard in his paper referred to above:

   

[G]iven TEC's actions and given the Archbishop's response it is now logically impossible for TEC to sign the covenant without significantly changing course and showing that it no longer is driven by a "vision . . . not shaped by the desire to intensify relationships in this particular way, or whose vision of the Communion is different" [quoting from paragraph 22 of the Archbishop's "Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future"]

   

Having raised the matter of the Anglican Covenant, Bishop Doyle then makes reference to a process for the Diocese of Texas to consider the Covenant. The first point that emerges from what he says about this relates to the issue of timing. In his February 2010 report to the 161st Diocesan Council, Bishop Doyle proposed a discussion at the next annual Council in 2011 in anticipation that a mind of Council resolution would be adopted at that time. It appears from Bishop Doyle's current letter that his timetable for Council consideration has slipped a year, to the 2012 annual Council. Meanwhile, several other dioceses have moved ahead much more purposefully. The Dioceses of Central Florida, Dallas, Albany and Western Louisiana have all taken actions in some form to adopt or endorse the Covenant. The Diocese of West Texas has discussed the Covenant at its last annual council with action anticipated in 2011. None of these particular Dioceses face impediments to adoption such as those created by the Diocese of Texas' standing committee.

   

The second point that seems worth noting is that Bishop Doyle says that he strongly supports the Anglican Covenant. This expression of support seems clouded by Bishop Doyle's apparent belief that agreement with the direction of TEC on the matters at issue is not inconsistent with support for the Covenant. (By "agreeing with the direction of TEC," it seems reasonably clear that Bishop Doyle must mean not just advocacy of a position on sexuality issues in continuing discussions, but agreement with TEC's actions violative of what has been requested by the Communion's representative bodies.)

   

A third point concerning the Covenant is Bishop Doyle's proposal for a study of issues regarding the Covenant and "theological and practical realities of a healthy Communion" using a curriculum to be developed by a task force he has appointed. (The members of the task force are not identified in Bishop Doyle's letter.) The question arises whether the task force developing the curriculum will be operating under the assumption that the undertakings and commitments of the Anglican Covenant can be made in good faith by those "agreeing with the direction of TEC" as reflected, for example, in the consecration of Mary Glasspool. If input is to be sought from the Diocese at large, it seems important that the issues be presented to the Diocese in a way that does not obscure the point of view of the representative bodies of the Communion.

   

Will the Diocese of Texas adhere to "the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion" or "agree with the direction of TEC"?  It is not apparent how the Diocese can do both.

___________ 

¹ I commented on this at http://www.stayinanglican.com/stayin_anglican/2010/03/the-dot-standing-committees-consent-as-to-glasspool-and-further-reflections-on-the-councils-samesex-.html.

² I discuss this action in "Diocese of Texas passes council resolution according legitimacy to same-sex relationships." http://www.stayinanglican.com/stayin_anglican/2010/02/diocese-of-texas-passes-council-resolution-according-legitimacy-to-same-sex-relationships.html.

³ Philip W. Turner, "The Tail is Wagging the Dog: A Response to the Pastoral Letter of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori" (June 10, 2010), http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2010/06/the-tail-is-wagging-the-dog-a-response-to-the-pastoral-letter-of-presiding-bishop-katharine-jefferts-schori/

⁴ Christopher R. Seitz, "God the Holy Spirit and 'being led into all truth'" (June 6, 2010), http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2010/06/god-the-holy-spirit-and-%e2%80%9cbeing-led-into-all-truth%e2%80%9d/.

⁵ Andrew Goddard, "Reflections on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Pentecost Letter: A pathway for Anglican spiritual renewal?" (June 17, 2010), http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=539.

⁶ Anglican Communion Institute, Inc., "The Anglican Covenant: Shared Discernment Recognized by All" (September 3, 2009), http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2009/09/the-anglican-covenant-shared-discernment-recognized-by-all/.

Comments

[George Mims]

Michael, as always, you've hit the nail on the head regarding inconsistencies that are so pronounced between the various leaders of TEC and the Anglican Communion. Thank you for the time involved in addressing the issues at hand with clarity and thoughtfulness. Peace, George Mims

[Mike]

Thanks for the kind words George. We were just thinking about you earlier this week as we drove miles and . . . miles across Texas with the trip enhanced by listening to some wonderful CDs produced under your direction.

[Jim McNeely+]

Simply a splendid summary of the germane theological issues and how they impact the current situation. Not to mention a serious fisquing of the major statements in question.

-Jim+

[Mark Adams Brown]

TEC wants its dioceses to retain their American monopoly on the Anglican Communion’s expression of Christianity - while abandoning that very expression.

Mark Brown
San Angelo, Texas
June 28, 2010