Anglican Journal: Making Back to Church Sunday more than an annual event

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Anglican Journal: Making Back to Church Sunday more than an annual event

An Open Letter to My Jewish and Christian Colleagues

19 July 2012

Dear Members of the Vancouver Jewish-Christian Dialogue,

When the news of the bomb attack in Bulgaria came to my attention, I knew that I could not share only private thoughts with one or two colleagues.  So I write to you as Co-Chair of our Vancouver Dialogue, but first and foremost, I write as a Christian who exercises a leadership role within my tradition.

Here in Vancouver Christians who use the Revised Common Lectionary have been following the story of David's rise to become the monarch of a united kingdom and the establishment of Jerusalem as the political and religious heart of his kingdom.  These readings remind us that the Holy Land is not only a religious symbol but the historic home of the Jewish people.  They also remind us that conflict has often been part of that history and that concern for land and security has been a never-ending dimension of Jewish life.  These readings also serve to remind Christians that God's covenant with Israel has never been revoked and that we, as Christians, understand ourselves, by God's gracious act, to have been grafted onto this olive tree.  

This summer we face the anniversaries of two terrorist attacks on the Jewish community:  the attack on the Jewish community in Buenos Aires and the murder of nine members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich.  These anniversaries only serve to punctuate the continuing anti-Semitism in our world and the targeting of Jewish communities throughout the world for acts of violence and terror.

These anniversaries and other acts of violence against innocent civilians come during a summer when several churches in North America have debated or will debate resolutions regarding the State of Israel and how these churches can give impetus to a lasting and just peace for Israelis and Palestinians.  These resolutions have generated concern and criticism within the North American Jewish community as well as putting stresses on relations between Jews and Christians.

I ask my Christian colleagues to undertake to strengthen the personal and collegial relationships that they have with their Jewish neighbours and colleagues.  Now is the time, today is the day, to embody the covenantal love with which God loves all of us.  Now is the time, today is the day, for Christians to ask the leaders of our churches to make unequivocal condemnations of violence against any members of the Jewish community, whether in Israel or elsewhere in the world.

I ask my Jewish colleagues to remember that you are not alone.  You have colleagues here in Vancouver and elsewhere who are committed to the peace and security of the Jewish community.  We hold you and all victims of violence and terror in our prayers and in our consciences as we work with you for the peace of Jerusalem.

Shabbat shalom,

Richard+

(The Rev'd Dr) Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Co-Chair of the Vancouver Jewish-Christian Dialogue

Saint Faith's Anglican Church

7284 Cypress Street

Vancouver BC V6P 5M3

604.266.8011 (office)

604.266.8096 (FAX)

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www.stfaiths.ca

Pottage Now or Solid Food Later?

[The following notes formed the basis for a homily preached at St David's Anglican Church, Vancouver BC, on the 12th and the 13th of July 2008. My thoughts on the Esau-Jacob story were stimulated in part by my unease with the present situation in the Anglican Communion. On the one side are confessional-minded Anglicans who wish to dispel any ambiguity. On the other side are Anglicans who think that the way forward is to set aside credal statements of faith and rely on a particular understanding of post-modern thought. Neither, in my opinion, is the way forward, but the desire for a solution can lead us to accept pottage rather than solid food.]

Propers: Genesis 25.19-34; Psalm 119.105-112; Romans 8.1-11; Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23

O God of mercy, in Jesus Christ you freed us from sin and death, and by your Holy Spirit you nourish our mortal bodies with life. Plant us now in good soil, that our lives may flower in righteousness and peace. [We ask this through your incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, who with you and the Spirit of life, you live and reign, one God, now and for ever.] Amen.[1]

+ May I only speak God’s truth. May you only hear God’s truth. Amen.

1) From the first Sunday after Trinity until the second Sunday before Advent we enter what some liturgists call ‘ordinary’ time. More often than not, many of us simply call it ‘green’ time, that lengthy sequence of Sundays when the vestments are green and the lectionary includes texts that are confusing, seemingly irrelevant and even obscure.

2) At the present time we are in a part of the lectionary, the schedule of readings we use as a discipline to nurture our lives as Christians, that tells the stories of some of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people as well as their connections with the peoples who also lived in what we frequently call the Holy Land. We have heard the story of Abraham and Sarah and now we hear stories of their descendants.

3) I must be honest with you. As I looked at the readings for today, I was not sure what I should preach for you, the people of St David’s. The gospel reading didn’t need explaining; Jesus does that for me. The reading from Romans was pretty straightforward. Our reading from Genesis seemed, well, just a little bit boring.

4) But then I found myself thinking about some recent developments in my professional life and various developments in our lives as Anglicans. I then realized that the story of Jacob and Esau was not so boring after all. It was downright topical. Let me explain.

5) This past week I and several other administrators at VST have been pondering a proposal regarding staffing. We’ve gone back and forth on this proposal several times over the past few days, a ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ that has been a bit annoying to me and to others. On Friday I realized what the problem was with the proposal: It was a proposal that would provide us with a short-term gain but lead to long-term pain. What we needed to do was to accept some short-term pain in order to achieve some long-term gain

6) Within our own church nationally and internationally we are struggling with how we proclaim the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth in a way that is faithful to our heritage as Anglican Christians but open to our present situation as people of faith who live and witness in diverse cultures and social situations. Various proposals have been put forward to help us maintain our unity in the face of the very real social, cultural and theological differences that account for the controversies swirling around us. These proposals range from ones that are quite clear and specific about what is and is not Anglican Christianity, while others suggest that any attempt to define what is and is not Anglican are useless. What I find in both extreme positions is the desire to settle things quickly, to achieve short-term gain, while risking long-term pain.

7) Friends, the story of Jacob and Esau has many levels of meaning, too many for me to recount today. But let me suggest to you one that relates to our present situation. Esau is willing to sacrifice his birth-right to satisfy his immediate hunger. In other words, he prefers a short-term gain and, as a consequence, will suffer the long-term pain of losing his father’s blessing, a blessing that in Jewish tradition conveyed concrete benefits in terms of lands, goods and position in the family. ‘I’m hungry now,’ Esau snarls to his brother, Jacob. ‘What good are lands, goods and position to me if I starve to death?’ Imagine what a little patience would have brought to Esau.

8) Whether we are talking about St David’s or the Diocese of New Westminster or the Anglican Church of Canada or the Anglican Communion, we are in a time of pain. For some the pain arises from witnessing the decline of our congregations in the face of a changing society. For others the pain arises from witnessing our church battle over issues that touch the core of our understanding of what it means to be human and to be made in the image and likeness of God.

9) When we are in pain, we are often tempted to call out, ‘Make it stop. Give me, give us, something that will make the pain go away.’ But a quick fix, a pain reliever that masks the underlying causes of our pain, may contribute to a longer term dissolution of the values and commitments we hold dear. We may find that our desire to feel better may rob us of the opportunity to nurture and expand our ability to serve God and to participate in God’s mission to bring full life to all of God’s beloved.

10) My sisters and brothers, we cannot afford to be the Esau’s of our generation of Christians. We need to be prepared to endure the present pain and uncertainty within our congregation, church and communion without looking for quick or easy answers. In Jesus of Nazareth God has offered us a future, a heritage to be shared with generations yet unborn and with peoples who do not yet have the freedom to enjoy the fullness of life that is their birth-right. They are asking us to lift up our hearts and minds and hands and eyes so that we can see that we are on a journey that still has far to go, but a journey that leads us to a destination where all our hungers will be sated and our thirsts quenched.

11) May God give us strength for that journey. May God give us confidence to work towards our destination, life in Christ and life in its fullness. Amen.

---

[1] Revised Common Lectionary Prayers (2002) with doxology added by RGL+.

Speak in a Language Understood of the People

The following remarks were given at a conference on the Anglican Covenant held at General Theological Seminary (10 to 12 April 2008)

Vernacular Particularlity versus Global Universalism:

A Pivotal Issue for the Anglican Covenant

The Rev’d Dr Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Vancouver School of Theology

Let me begin my comments by making my status clear. Although I am a member of the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada and a member of the Joint Commission of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, I am not empowered to speak for either today. Nor do I speak for Vancouver School of Theology.

I speak as an Anglican liturgist who has been privileged to serve nationally and internationally. I speak as a liturgist who has worked with aboriginal people in Canada and the United States for more than twenty years as they wrestle with the relationship between local culture and the received Anglican tradition. This experience has caused me to question the necessity for a covenant other than the Quadrilateral, an approach which bore fruit in our full communion agreement with the ELCIC, and the Anglican commitment to what can be called the vernacular.

The St Andrew’s Draft of a proposed Anglican covenant needs to be seen in the context of the on-going search within the Anglican Communion to identify where authority is located and, more importantly, how authority is exercised. This debate first raised its head over such issues as artificial contraception and the remarriage of divorced persons but reached a fever pitch with the ordination of women in certain provinces of the Anglican Communion in the second half of the twentieth century.

In 1997 the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission released the so-called ‘Virginia Report’ on authority. The Report recommended strengthening what it termed the instruments of unity: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. A number of responses were made to this Report, most expressing profound concern at its centralizing tendencies. I wish to note that two of the more critical reports came from the Anglican faculty of Vancouver School of Theology and from the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada.

I do not need to rehearse for this audience the history of the events concerning the present controversy regarding the full inclusion of gay and lesbian disciples of Jesus Christ in the life of the Anglican Communion. Suffice it to say that the controversy gave rise to the Windsor Report of October 2004. The Windsor Report resurrected the spirit, if not the flesh, of the Virginia Report, recommending the strengthening of the roles and authority of the familiar Virginia quartet of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. Two more radical suggestions were made: (i) the creation of a council of advice regarding arrangements for shared episcopal ministry and (ii) the admonitions that, in the election of bishops and the selection of representatives to international Anglican bodies, consideration be given as to whether the bishop elected and/or the person appointed will be acceptable to ‘others’ in the Communion. Once again, the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee expressed its profound reservations with the proposals of the Windsor Report.

Let me continue my comments on the covenant process with some observations by David Bosch, the late South African theologian of mission. At the end of his chapter on ‘New Testament Models of Mission’ Bosch has a section entitled, ‘Where the Early Church failed’. He gives three examples.

First, the early Christian community stopped understanding itself as leaven and began to understand itself as the loaf.

Those who followed [Jesus] were given no name to distinguish them from other groups, no creed of their own, no rite which revealed their distinctive group character, no geographical center from which they would operate. . . . The community around Jesus was to function as a kind of pars pro toto, a community for the sake of others, a model for others to emulate and be challenged by.[1]

In the course of time the Jesus community simply became a new religion, Christianity, a new principle of division among humankind.[2]

Second, the early Christian community ceased being a movement and became an institution.[3] Bosch describes movements as (a) progressive; (b) active, influencing rather than being influenced; (c) future-oriented; (d) willing to take risks and (e) willing to cross boundaries. On the other hand, Bosch describes institutions as (a) conservative; (b) more or less passive, yielding to influences from outside; (c) past-oriented; (d) anxious and (e) guarding boundaries.

Third, the early Christian community ceased to be a community of communities and became subject to Gentile hegemony.[4] The original Christian movement was thoroughly Jewish in its perspective and its mission. It faced the challenge of the Gentile mission and envisioned a community of communities, Jewish and Gentile, that could witness to the good news of God in Jesus Christ. However, the vision of a community of communities failed and was replaced by a Gentile hegemony that eventually resulted in the anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish bias of much of Christian history.

I suggest that the proposals for ‘unity’ outlined in the St Andrew’s Draft Text, mooted earlier in the Virginia and Windsor Reports, represent a similar failure of mission on the part of the Anglican Communion.

Is the Anglican Communion moving from being ‘leaven’ in the body of the church catholic or a new religion?

Archbishop Michael Ramsey once described the vocation of the Anglican Communion as one of ‘disappearing’. He spoke of the Communion as a community within the church catholic that shared a common story. He insisted, however, that its purpose was not to be a ‘church’, i.e., an ecclesial community with competing claims over and against other ecclesial communities.

One of the risks of the St Andrew’s Draft Text and the covenant process is the creation of a centripetal force that will change the roles of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council from their present roles as nexuses, places where paths come together, into centres from which paths lead out. When that happens, the Communion ceases to be a communion and becomes a church.

Is the Anglican Communion a movement within the church catholic or an institution?

Following on my observations above, the present climate in the Anglican Communion seems to be encouraging a shift from being a movement within the church catholic into an institution. To those of us with a love-hate relationship with the Anglican Communion, it may surprise us to suggest that we are not yet truly an institution, but I do believe that there is a significant shift in view that is occurring among us. If we look carefully at the proposed covenant and at recent actions of at least one instrument of communion, the Primates’ Meeting, what appears is an environment that is (a) conservative; (b) more or less passive, yielding to influences from outside; (c) past-oriented; (d) anxious and (e) keen to guard boundaries.

Is the Anglican Communion a community of communities or a like-minded community dominated by one theological culture?

In my teaching I have frequently described Anglicanism as a Christian movement committed to ‘national catholicism’. Our ‘catholicism’ is expressed in the four points of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral:

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as ‘containing all things necessary to salvation,’ and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith;

The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith;

The two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself --- Baptism and the Supper of the Lord --- ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him;

The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.[5]

Here I would focus on the fourth point of the Quadrilateral, especially the phrase, “. . . locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.”

Our ‘national’ character finds expression in our commitment to inculturate the gospel in the places where God has put us for mission. Another way of expressing this ‘national’ or ‘inculturated’ character is to use the concept of the vernacular. This commitment to the vernacular can be found in the foundations of the Church of England. In the final paragraph of the statement ‘Of Ceremonies, Why Some be Abolished and Some Retayned’ printed in the first Edwardian prayer book, we read the following:

And in these all our dooynges wee condemne no other nacions, nor prescribe anye thing, but to oure owne people onelye. For we thinke it conueniente that euery countreye should use such ceremonies, as thei shal thynke beste to the setting foorth of goddess honor, and glorye: and to the reducyng of the people to a moste perfecte and Godly liuing, without errour or supersticion: and that they shoulde putte awaye other thynges, which from time to time they perceiue to be most abused, as in mennes ordinaunces it often chaūceth diuerselye in diuerse countreyes.[6]

In Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Richard Hooker, the foundational Anglican theologian, responds to the argument that Scripture is the sole source of wisdom with an affirmation of how God’s wisdom pervades all of creation.

Whatsoever either men on earth, or the Angels of Heaven do know, it is as a drop of that unemptiable fountaine of wisdom, which wisdom hath diversely imparted her treasures unto the world. As her waies are of sundry kinds, so her maner of teaching is not merely one and the same. Some things she openeth by the sacred bookes of Scripture; some things by the glorious works of nature: with some things she inspireth them from above by spirituall influence, in some thinges she leadeth and trayneth them onely by worldly experience and practise. We may not so in any one special kind admire her that we disgrace her in any other, but let all her wayes be according unto their place and degree adored.[7]

In recent years the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation has considered what unites Anglicans in worship as well as what celebrates the distinctive cultures in which we live and serve. This point of view is perhaps most clearly articulated in the statement and essays associated with the meeting of the Consultation in York in 1989.

Thus we believe that [Resolutions 18, 22 and 45 of the Lambeth Conference 1988] (and the relevant parts of the Lambeth ‘Mission and Ministry’ section report [paras 180-186]) call in question attempts to identify Anglicanism, whether locally or worldwide, through any common liturgical texts, ethos or style. We believe the ‘essential Anglican norms’ of Lambeth Resolution 47 are largely those contained within the Lambeth Quadrilateral and described within Lambeth Resolution 18 --- i.e. the Bible, creeds, sacraments of the gospel, and episcopal ordination. We believe that use of vernacular language to be foundational to inculturation, and within that value highly the ‘traditional liturgical materials’ to which Resolution 47 also refers. Our common liturgical heritage in items such as the Lord’s Prayer promotes common prayer, sustains a dialogue with the scriptures, and conserves an element of the universal amid the particular of inculturated worship.[8]

Inculturation is the ‘vernacularization’ of the language of the Christian gospel and the specific traditions which may have been the missionary agents of first contact.

Inculturation must . . . affect the whole ethos of corporate worship, not only the texts but also, for example, the use of buildings, furnishings, art, music and ceremonial. From one aspect it means cultural decolonialization of worship, from another it requires recognition of the special needs of an ethnic or other minority, which may be culturally distinct from the prevailing ethos of the Province. True inculturation implies a willingness in worship to listen to culture, to incorporate what is good and to challenge what is alien to the truth of God. It has to make contact with the deep feelings of people. It can only be achieved through an openness to innovation and experimentation, an encouragement of local creativity, and a readiness to reflect critically at each stage of the process --- a process which in principle is never ending. The liturgy, rightly constructed, forms the people of God, enabling and equipping them for their mission of evangelism and social justice in their culture and society.[9]

It is this vernacular quality of the Anglican tradition which is potentially at risk in the covenant process. It is this openness to innovation and experimentation which is potentially at risk in the covenant process. It is the attentiveness to the special needs of a given minority within a Province which is potentially at risk in the covenant process. This vernacular quality is not maintained by statute but by the patient process of reception and communion within diversity.

If Anglicanism is to survive as a communion --- that is, in maintaining actual communion among its very diverse members across the world --- it will do so only by acknowledging the centrality of its spiritual tradition. . . . In so far as we decline to do so, we shall probably try to substitute, at the heart of Anglicanism, the kind of doctrinal and disciplinary rigidity that we have both rejected and coveted in the Reformed and Roman traditions. If we do so, we will tear Anglicanism, both as a community and as tradition, into increasingly small pieces.[10]

Our unique vocation as a Communion that claims both its catholic and reformed heritage may lie in our willingness to reject centripetal proposals in favour of those that focus on remaining at the Table and listening to one another as we journey through the difficult process of vernacularization.

No one in the Anglican Communion really knows what the practical implications of our communion with one another may yet be in terms of working out what each national church does and how it hears the gospel. For example, the Episcopal Church in the United States now ordains women to the priesthood and episcopate, while some churches in Africa reject such ordinations. Similarly, Episcopalians deplore polygamy while African bishops debate the possibility of permitting it within the church. If such disparate churches are willing to remain in communion, that in itself is an expression of the Incarnation. We Anglicans who are in communion with one another are having to ask how the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be incarnate in a particular time and place, and to a particular people and community. How do we enjoy continuity in our shared tradition of belief while still making room as new political and cultural situations arise?[11]

Despite the differences that are straining the bonds of affection and communion within our Communion, I am convinced that these bonds will not be strengthened by constitutional institutions but rather by a renewed commitment to a unity within diversity that is courageous enough to weather patiently the process of the vernacularization of the Christian gospel. Thank you.

---

[1] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, American Society of Missiology Series, no. 16 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991, 2002), 50.

[2] Bosch 2002, 50.

[3] Bosch 2002, 50-51.

[4] Bosch 2002, 51-52.

[5] The Book of Common Prayer (USA 1979), 877-878.

[6] The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, Everyman’s Library, no. 448 (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1910; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1910), 288.

[7] Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity II.1.

[8] David R. Holeton, ed., Liturgical Inculturation in the Anglican Communion including the York Statement ‘Down to Earth Worship’¸ Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study, no. 15 (Bramcote, UK: Grove Books Limited, 1990), 12.

[9] Holeton 1990, 9-10.

[10] William Countryman, The Poetic Imagination: An Anglican Spiritual Tradition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 190; as quoted Patricia Bays, Anglican Diversity: Challenges for the 21^st Century (Toronto, ON: The Anglican Book Centre, 2001), 116.

[11] James Griffiss, The Anglican Vision, The New Church’s Teaching Series, no. 1 (Toronto, ON: The Anglican Book Centre, 1997), 65.

Thoughts to a Friend on an Anglican Covenant

A central dimension of Anglican theological method has been to discover the Word amidst the words that are used to describe the human encounter with the living God.

Some Anglicans have relied primarily on the Scriptures as plainly understood and taught as the guide to discern the Word amidst the words. Given their commitment to the notion that the Scriptures speak plainly and are to be understood in their plain sense, these Anglicans have, over the centuries, tended to distrust any other approach to the knowledge of God.

Other Anglicans have relied primarily on tradition as the means by which we come to discern the Word. Given their commitment to the catholicity of the church and to the notion of apostolic continuity, these Anglicans have, over the centuries, tended to look to what they understand to be the consensus of the faithful.

A minority of Anglicans have relied primarily on reason as the means by which we come to discern the Word. Given their commitment to the belief that we are made in the image and likeness of God, that reason and free will are characteristics of the divine stamp on human identity, these Anglicans have, over the centuries, tended towards an appreciation of ambiguity; not the ambiguity of not knowing what they are seeking or discussing, but the ambiguity of recognizing the provisional character of all human knowing.

The roots of the present Anglican crisis are deeper than are general acknowledged. I have come to wonder whether our present difficulties are not the product of the twentieth century but rather of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. At the restoration of the monarchy, the traditionalists, i.e., those who have relied primarily on continuity, whether institutional or apostolic, became the ascendant party in the Church of England. However, this party could not replace the desire of many within the Church of England for a plain Christianity, open to every Christian, whether learned or not. For this reason, the early eighteenth century saw the rise of the evangelical renewal, a movement more scripturalist in its approach and, at times, genuinely hostile to the traditionalist party.

These two parties vied for dominance in the English church and their partisanship extended far beyond the borders of England. While the American and Scottish churches tended to adopt a traditionalist position, the Irish church tended to the scripturalist as a natural reaction to the dominant Roman Catholicism of Ireland. The existence of the Church Mission Society (scripturalist) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (traditionalist) speaks to the efforts of these two parties to assert their positions into the British colonies.

On many levels these two parties did not feel the necessity to divide the church; they shared, in some ways, an uncritical approach to the Scriptures and to the tradition. The small group of Anglicans committed to reason, embodied in Hooker, Great Tew, the Cambridge Platonists and the Noetics, while respected in some circles, were, for the most part, marginalized given the relative unity of thought on the part of the scripturalists and traditionalists.

In the nineteenth century the rise of modern critical approaches to the Scriptures and to the tradition upset the relative balance between the two dominant parties. Beginning with the publication of Essays Modern and Critical in 1860, the two dominant parties recognized a genuine threat to the entente cordiale that had characterized the previous two centuries. The Gorham and Colenso controversies added more fuel to the fire; Lux Mundi and Essays Catholic and Critical, coming as they did from the catholic wing of the traditionalists (the other wing being the old Latitudinarians) caused even more concern.

What began to emerge was what some historians call the Broad Church movement, but I prefer to see it as a loose confederation of Anglicans with roots in the various wings of the scripturalist and traditionalist parties who came to see that Hooker was right: We understand the Logos primarily through the agency of God’s wisdom which, in turn, operates primarily through the faculty of human reason.

The problem faced by the scripturalists and the traditionalists as a result of this loose confederation was the loss of a genteel absolutism, i.e., an absolutism of infallible Scriptures or the absolutism of a romanticized tradition. The ‘reasonalists’, with their ‘courtesy of ignorance’, i.e., the recognition that all human knowing is provisional, could not be trusted. They were and are willing to consider that they might be wrong, that ‘time makes old truths uncouth’. In his message to the American Congress in 1862 as the Civil War raged and the Union forces were failing, Abraham Lincoln said

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

In these words I find an expression of the ‘reasonalist’ position that I believe has upset the balance.

I have come to place my hope for the future of a compassionate and balanced Anglicanism upon the ‘reasonalists’ rather than the scripturalists or the traditionalists. So long as the two dominant parties seek a false security in a covenant that cannot help but become a strait jacket and that undoes generations of synodical development in the majority of Anglican provinces, I will oppose any and all efforts to develop a covenant. I will not sacrifice my reason to satisfy the consciences of the scripturalists nor will I sacrifice my reason to satisfy the traditionalists. In my reason and the obligation to exercise informed free will lie my participation in the divine and life-giving Trinity. They are my birthright as a human being made in God’s image and likeness.

I am not unaware of the cost of this position. I hold no hope that the division of the Anglican Communion can be averted. Since the scripturalists and the traditionalists hold to positions that, in the end, are essentialist and authoritarian, there is little or no room for conscience nor for the legitimate search for the Word in the midst of the words that constitute human cultures and experience. I am confident, however, that I am Christ’s and that no one, whether primate, bishop or council, can rob me of that.

So, what does this ‘reasonalist’ say to someone to whom the responsibility has been given to participate in a process which he thinks is so fundamentally flawed and wrong-headed? Hold out for the Lambeth Quadrilateral unadulterated by attempts to tighten its language.

I believe the Old and New Testaments to be the word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation.

I believe that the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds to be the sufficient statements of that doctrine necessary to salvation.

I believe that baptism and holy communion, administered in recognizable fidelity to antiquity, are the only sacramental rites necessary for full life in the Body of Christ.

I believe that the apostolic continuity of the ēkklesia, episcopally-led and synodically-governed, embodying episkopē, koinōnia and diakonia expressed in communal, collegial and personal modes, is the normative polity of the catholic church.

Any Christian body, whether presently Anglican or not, that embodies these four principles is or should be in communion with the See of Canterbury.

These four principles permit the communion of ecclesial communities that do and do not permit the remarriage of divorced persons. These four principles permit the communion of ecclesial communities that do and do not ordain women. These four principles permit the communion of ecclesial bodies that do and do not permit the blessing of the life-long exclusive covenants of gay and lesbian persons. These four principles permit the communion of Christians who are scripturalist, traditionalist and reasonalist.

Any covenant that seeks to establish extra-provincial forms of government must be resisted without surcease. Just as I oppose the interference of the Archbishop of the Southern Cone in the affairs of the Anglican Church of Canada, so would I oppose with equal force the interference of the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada in the affairs of the Church of the Southern Cone. The Anglican Communion is built upon bonds of affection not legislative structures, especially any that privilege the episcopal office. Our life together is characterized by respect and persuasion rather than condemnation and coercion.

I apologize if my remarks are not ones that prove to be of value to my friends in the Communion who are engaged in the Covenant process. I am writing as one friend to another without the benefit of mature reflection and adequate research to support my case. I know that others have done far more reflection than I and are more aware of the various cases that have been made for and against the covenant process. I am not a moderate voice, a calm voice, a reasoned voice in what I see as the greatest threat to the compassionate and balanced Anglicanism I have written of above. I am an overly passionate and intemperate voice defending the costly and uncomfortable via media that the so-called ‘instruments of communion’ are, in my opinion, colluding to undermine. The only international body that I have any confidence in is the Anglican Consultative Council, but it may be that it, too, will be brought down by the spiritual greed of ‘unaccountable foreign prelates’.