In this piece I want to critique two articles appearing in the March 2010 issue of News From the Hill, a newsletter of Virginia Theological Seminary. They are companion articles written by two prominent figures in the Diocese of Texas – the Honorable James A. Baker III, former Secretary of State and a member of St. Martin’s, Houston, and the Reverend Dr. Russell J. Levenson, rector of St. Martin’s. Secretary Baker’s article, “Finding Our Way Forward,” appears on page 6 of the issue and may be accessed at http://tinyurl.com/yeyplzn. Dr. Levenson’s article, “A Time for Self-Restraint: Reclaiming the
In late March, the Baker and Levenson articles were picked up in the Anglican blogosphere (TitusOneNine, Stand Firm and elsewhere). On the blogs, the two articles drew criticism, in large part based on the belief they exhibited naïveté about the leadership of the national Church. Some commenters were skeptical that agreement on a local option approach would even be within the realm of possibility. I want here to consider these two articles from a different point of view. Putting aside any prediction about whether the dominant forces within the national organization of The Episcopal Church would be receptive to local option, I will argue that both articles fail to consider the basic Anglican doctrine that while some things are adiaphora (things that don’t make a difference), others aren’t. Further, I will observe that in the case of the issues involved here, the Anglican Communion has some time ago decided that positions now being taken by The Episcopal Church contravene the acceptable limits of diversity. From a Communion point of view, these are not issues as to which an “agreement to disagree” is appropriate. Although avenues for further discussion can and should remain open and reexamination of that determination is not foreclosed, that is where matters stand. I hope to be able to express my disagreement in a respectful way, especially since the persons with whom I am disagreeing are the rector and a distinguished member of the parish I attend.
Local option at the parish level – a solution?
In his article, former Secretary of State Baker advocates an approach under which both sides of the controversies on sexuality would agree to disagree. He says that the approach would be called an “all are welcome” or “local option” approach and that the approach “would promote a church of authentic inclusivity.” Parish votes beginning in 2012 would determine which position each parish would take, following passage of implementing resolutions or canonical changes at the 2012 General Convention. After 2012, additional votes could occur in General Convention years if requested by petition from 50% or more of the communicants of a parish, thus allowing a position initially taken to be changed at a later date. Bishops would exercise oversight over a parish “in keeping with that particular parish’s most recent vote.” Secretary Baker’s approach is that of a problem solver. He does not disclose in the article where he stands personally on the sexuality issues.
Unlike Mr. Baker’s article, Fr. Russell Levenson’s article repeatedly emphasizes that he personally espouses a conservative, traditional position on the sexuality issues. He maintains, however, that too much attention is being given to these issues and wants to distinguish himself from those taking a legalistic approach and from “absolutists” and “conservatives running from grace into the pseudo-safety of fundamentalism.” At what point a traditional approach turns into one involving absolutists running from grace toward fundamentalism seems, however, less than clear. By virtue of this lack of clarity, Fr. Levenson’s article exhibits a disjointedness that renders its logic (for me at least) somewhat hard to follow. But at the end of the day he too desires a “solution that respects not only the autonomy of individual bishops and their dioceses, but also of clergy and their parishes.”
Fr. Levenson’s two candidates for a solution that respects autonomy in the way he describes are, first, Secretary Baker’s local option approach and, second, one that allows adoption or affirmation of the Anglican Covenant not only at the provincial level but also at the diocesan and parish levels. The mechanics of the second approach are not spelled out by Fr. Levenson in the way Mr. Baker does for his proposal, but it appears that Fr. Levenson would like to see agreed local option in one of two forms, the difference being that the first would not be linked to decisions regarding the Covenant and the second would. Either would provide, says Fr. Levenson, a way to “move past issues and put our focus where it should be all along.” And either would allow TEC to “reclaim[] an authentic understanding of grace, by becoming what it has sometimes claimed to be, the roomiest place in God’s house.” The foundation of the roominess that Fr. Levenson looks forward to would be “not legalism, but autonomy.” He too desires an outcome that honors “authentic inclusion.”
I will come back later to Fr. Levenson’s linkage in his second approach of local option at the diocesan and parish levels with the Anglican Covenant, because I want to try to make it clear that the agreed local option overlay makes what he is proposing something quite different from the solution involving the Anglican Covenant usually envisioned by traditionalists.
Former Secretary of State Baker acknowledges in his piece that his perspective is from the world of national and international politics. From his experience, he posits that for some hotly contested issues, the most practical approach includes postponing decisions on irresolvable issues with the two sides affording mutual respect for their differing opinions. Viewed from that perspective, and recognizing Mr. Baker’s experience and successes, his approach is clearly worthy of careful evaluation. A question some will be left with, however, is whether a conflict-minimizing strategy appropriate for national and international politics takes into account everything that needs to be considered in addressing a conflict within the Church.
An Anglican approach: determining which things make a difference
What I see as missing from the approaches of Secretary Baker and Fr. Levenson is a recognition that there are some things about which practices can differ without threatening church unity and others for which this is not the case. The former category is identified by the term adiaphora, that is, things that do not make a difference. But not all things fall in this category. As The Windsor Report states (paragraph 89),
It has never been enough to say that we must celebrate or at least respect ‘difference’ without further ado. Not all ‘differences’ can be tolerated. * * * This question is frequently begged in current discussions, as for instance when people suggest without further argument, in relation to a particular controversial issue, that it should not be allowed to impair the Church’s unity, in other words that the matter in question is not as serious as some suppose. * * * On the contrary: Paul insists that some types of behaviour are incompatible with inheriting God’s coming kingdom, and must not therefore be tolerated within the Church. ‘Difference’ has become a concept within current postmodern discourse which can easily mislead the contemporary western church into forgetting the principles, enshrined in scripture and often rearticulated within Anglicanism, for distinguishing one type of difference from another.
By presenting the issue as one as to which it is possible to agree to disagree, and advocating making express provision for local option, the authors of the two articles are expressing the belief, in terms of the words from The Windsor Report just quoted, that “the matter in question is not as serious as some suppose.” Further, they are doing so “without further argument.” These beliefs might turn out to be correct, but how would one know that? The Rt. Rev’d N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, in his May 21, 2010 address to his diocesan synod argues we can’t know it by simple assertion.
And again the point is this: we cannot assume that this or that issue belongs at the ‘flexible’ end of the scale, so that by appealing to the existence of such a scale we can thereby locate a particular issue at one point on it. As I said before, the proposal that something hitherto mandatory is now optional, or that something hitherto prohibited is now permitted, or that something previously important is now trivial, is not itself trivial. Just because Christians have agreed to differ on one matter – say, on the mode of Eucharistic presence, or on whether Christians can fight in the army – that doesn’t mean we can agree to differ on any other topic that happens to come up. Each case has to be argued on its merits.
In a February 2009 meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England, Bishop Wright discussed the criteria for decision on such matters, arguing from the 2008
Where a matter presses these three buttons a strong initial case is made that the issue cannot be decided locally with everybody else simply told to accept difference. That might be the eventual decision, but if the matter possesses Intensity, Substance and Extent you can’t and shouldn’t assume it. To do so would be a cavalier flouting of the very nature of Communion.
The “intensity, substance and extent” criteria were subsequently rearticulated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his July 27, 2009 reflection “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future,” where he noted that a recognition that intensity, substance and extent are lacking “cannot be wished into being by one local church alone.” The “intensity, substance and extent” criteria were thereafter incorporated into section 3.2.5 of the text of the Anglican Covenant.
Taking all this into account, what is the result -- on the merits -- of the Church’s consideration of whether the sexuality issues are adiaphora? Bishop Wright gives the following answer in his May 2010 address.
[I]n the case of sexual relations outside the marriage of a man and a woman, the church as a whole, in all its global meetings not least the Lambeth Conference, has solidly and consistently reaffirmed the clear and unambiguous teaching of the New Testament. But the substantive issue isn’t the point here. The point is that the Church as a whole has never declared these matters to be adiaphora. This isn’t something a Bishop, a parish, a diocese, or a province can declare on its own authority. You can’t simply say that you have decided that this is something we can all agree to differ on. Nobody can just ‘declare’ that. The step from mandatory to optional can never itself be a local option, and the Church as a whole has declared that the case for that step has not been made. By all means let us have the debate. But, as before, it must be a proper theological debate, not a postmodern exchange of prejudices.
When Bishop Wright provides his clear articulation of the vital Anglican doctrine of adiaphora and how the Church decides which disagreements can be tolerated without endangering unity, he is not inventing something new. The concept of distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable forms of diversity is developed extensively in The Windsor Report, particularly paragraphs 36-37 and 71-96. (Included in the
As indicated by his use of the "intensity, substance and extent" criteria mentioned above, the Archbishop of Canterbury also takes as a given that there are limits to acceptable forms of diversity. Archbishop Rowan associates the limitations on diversity with the objective of maintaining recognizability to other local churches. In the same “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future” talk, 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.
More recently in his 2010 Pentecost Letter to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion, in the course of proposing that representatives of TEC and other provinces that have policies that breach the requested moratoria not participate in certain Communion activities, he states:
This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice.
Further, the Archbishop observes:
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.
As The Windsor Report and Bishop Wright make clear, the principle we are talking about finds its classic biblical expression in Romans 14:1 – 15:13 and in 1 Corinthians 8-10. It was invoked and developed by the early English Reformers and has been a major feature of Anglican theology since then. This makes it all the more surprising, in my opinion, that Fr. Levenson makes no mention in his article of any such basis for deciding whether particular issues should or should not be subject to the local option approach he and Mr. Baker advocate. Somewhat discordantly, in a lengthy January 2008 letter to the members of St. Martin’s, Fr. Levenson says, “Windsor specifically asked that TEC express regret and repentance for its actions of GC’03 in the approval of the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire and for allowing a kind of ‘local option’ on same-sex unions.” If there is a distinction between the allowance of local option on same sex unions viewed as something to be repented of in 2008 and the local option now put forward as a solution, that distinction does not seem to be one that has been explained.
Who are the schismatics?
Instead of dealing explicitly with the issue of whether disagreement over sexuality issues can be tolerated without endangering unity, Fr. Levenson posits a conflict between conservatives who have “taken up the arms of schismatic and pietistic separation from those deemed unholy” and liberals who have “returned the favor by failing to include the conservatives fully, often deeming them as a dying breed that needs to catch up, convert, or move on.” As noted above, Fr. Levenson does not provide criteria for determining when, for example, ordinary conservatism turns into schismatic and pietistic separation. Consistent with his subtitle “Reclaiming the
Can local option be associated with the Anglican Covenant?
Finally, to come back to something alluded to earlier, is Fr. Levenson’s second alternative in which local choice would be linked to adoption or affirmation of the Anglican Covenant something that is aligned with the Covenant's objectives? Certainly many proponents of the Anglican Covenant advocate the possibility of diocesan adoption. This is an aspect of the “other Church adoption” issue discussed in the blog entry immediately preceding this one. The difference is that “other Church adoption” in the context of the Anglican Covenant is typically viewed as a “lifeline” (as it was termed by the Bishop of Winchester) for a diocese that wishes to remain recognizably Anglican when its province does not. This is quite different from local option premised on a valuing of autonomy or “roominess” desired as an end in itself. It is one thing to think about contingencies as to how dioceses or aggregations of parishes might adopt the Anglican Covenant (assuming that becomes possible) or stay aligned with the Communion given that TEC seems determined to take another path. It is something else to promote affirmatively agreement on a permanent structure for local option.
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