Trinity Blog - News and Events

The question of the formation and recognition of a new Anglican Province in North America is currently being debated in the Anglican Communion. There is the urgent need on the one hand to regularize the situation of Anglicans who cannot in conscience assent to the innovations in doctrine and ethics being introduced into the life of TEC. On the other hand there is a natural reluctance to create a rival body alongside what has been a historic part of the Anglican Church. Institutions tend to avoid decisive measures, and minimize risk. However, reasons are given here for giving official support to the first steps in the formation of the new Province. It can be argued that failure to take these measures actually increases risk to the institutional as well as the spiritual life of the Communion. 

 

1. The Indaba process in this year’s Lambeth Conference gave what may be considered definitive proof that irreconcilable positions are held in respect to the controversial issues in human sexuality. Those who stayed away from the Conference certainly hold a view, which they will not relinquish. Even without their presence, the majority at Lambeth holding to the historic position was entirely stable. Mature reflection held them to the view that the Church could not revise its teaching to accommodate sexual activity outside the marriage of a man to a woman. The significant minority in favour of such revision also remains convinced of the rightness of its stance.  For them to change would, in their understanding, be a betrayal of lesbians and gays. One the one hand we have a large majority of Anglicans who cannot conscientiously continue in a church in which the alternative sexual ethic is an option. On the other hand we have a strongly motivated and resourced minority committed to the pursuit of this option.

 

2. The fact that the proposed revision in sexual ethics has no prospect of carrying the majority in the Anglican Communion is reflected in the Ecumenical life of the Church. Although this more radical expression of liberalism has made some impact in the historic Protestant Churches it is effectively rejected by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal and independent Evangelical churches world-wide. The case for change has been argued passionately, political leverage has been used extensively, but the Christian Church as a whole is still convinced that the creation ethic applies today, as in the past.

 

3. Granted this Anglican conclusion, strongly confirmed by the Ecumenical consensus, an attempt to keep open options on the sexual ethic or even the avoidance of some closure of the debate, is self defeating. It is pastorally damaging for all homosexuals, as it is more widely among the membership of the church.  The impact upon the public as a whole is equally damaging. For lack so far of a sufficient response through our Instruments of Communion there is an increasing risk of fragmentation of the Communion.

 

4. The dangers inherent in this situation have led to the GAFCON initiative and the formation of a Primates’ Council ready to make its own intervention in North America with the aim of bringing together in one body the Anglicans Churches and groupings currently standing out against the revisions sanctioned by TEC.  The professed intention of GAFCON is to work within the Anglican Communion, and therefore we may conclude that the preference of its leaders is that a new North American Province should from the outset be supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates as a body. Failing that development, the GAFCON council is evidently willing to act on its own.

 

5. Clearly the ‘official support’ for a new province is much better than sectional support.  Actually the ‘section’ represents the majority of Anglican membership worldwide and that fact makes the ‘official support even more critical.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, together with the Primates’ Meeting has a crucial role in preserving the unity of the Communion.  The majority of his fellow Anglicans wish unambiguously to retain the historic and biblical ethic.  His own conviction is that the Church is not free to introduce unilateral changes in doctrinal or ethical matters.  Yet two Member Churches in North America are continuing to pursue this path against the conscientious objection of significant numbers of their members.  These conditions surely underline the rightness and the necessity of official support for a new North American Province in formation. 

 

6. If one compares the outcome of a positive decision on the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates with its alternative: a GAFCON supported province, then very different scenarios may be anticipated. In the first instance Anglicans have the opportunity of uniting around their historic Instruments of Communion.  The vast majority may be expected to do so.  The second procedure will lead to a developing role for GAFCON in which, even if reluctantly, the authority of the Instruments of Communion will be further undermined.  Consequently the most damaging split could occur in the Anglican Family: the largest West and East African Provinces and sympathetic provinces, dioceses and parishes on one side, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Instruments of Communion relating to an Anglo-Anglican remnant. The first option will be opposed by those committed to the controversial revisions.  The second option risks in the end alienation on a massive scale.

 

7. It might be concluded from the above that GAFCON may be attempting to force the hand of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates as a whole. Here though we need to look at the deepest motives. Granted human failures that we all hold in common, we may safely assume that no one in this dispute is working purely cynically, and that by our lights we are all looking for a future God can approve. Revisionists believe that they are acting out of justice love. Conservatives seek to be loyal to the way of Christ according to the traditional interpretation and plain meaning of Scripture.  Surely it is better that both follow conscience rather than demanding a compromise of conscience that neither is willing to make.  Those with greatest responsibility in the Communion have corporate responsibility for preserving conscientious membership. Does it matter who it is who is taking the preparatory steps? The important thing is that they should lead to decisive measures that can be endorsed by the whole leadership?

 

8. It is clear that the decision whether or not to support a new Anglican province in North America is linked with the outcome of the Covenant Process.  The presumption would be that the newly formed province would participate in the Covenant once established. TEC, still committed to its revisions, would not qualify as a participating member church. With these questions as yet unresolved there is actually a costly and very damaging process of litigation taking place, affecting many Episcopal parishes and some dioceses in the United States. Would the authorization of a new Province and the establishment of a strong Covenant increase or decrease this level of litigation in the U.S. and increase or decrease the risk of similar conflict in other parts of the world? It could be argued that total clarity in the way the instruments of Communion seek to resolve this controversy will actually hasten the end of the litigation.  North American leaders who believe in the alternative ethic will finally realize that they cannot co-opt or coerce fellow Anglicans to this new agenda and may be content to pursue it on their own and using the resources and plant that more naturally correspond to them.

 

9. Finally there may be a case for the Archbishops and Primates to support the initial steps in the formation of the new Province of North America, and require for their completion an ongoing process of collaboration and consultation with participants appointed at the Primates’ Meeting itself. How the new province is set up is crucial. The birthing of the new entity may need the work of a supervisory group chaired by a Primates’ appointee. 

 

Maurice Sinclair

2nd November 2008

Cairo

 

The Most Rev. Maurice Sinclair

Former Archbishop of the Southern Cone

 

The purported deposition did, though, lay bare the extent of the cancerous corruption that afflicts those who have hijacked our church. Henceforth it will be very difficult to hide the Episcopal Church’s true condition, as the the lies about what was done were so amateurish and so obvious as to assume stupidity in those who actually might believe them. The vote in a sense revealed how weak these corrupt leaders are, as, after all, they were unable to accomplish this treachery legitimately, or with the numbers required, or under the relatively undemanding requirements of the canons.

It was interesting that two of the three bishops of the largest diocese, Virginia, reportedly voted against deposition.* Perhaps Bishop Lee, an institutional liberal, and his coadjutor realized more than most what this meant, as the Diocese of Virginia has borne the brunt of the Presiding Bishop’s scorched-earth warfare more than any other. They have seen what was once a financially secure diocese expend millions of dollars on needless litigation that has accomplished nothing but the further loss of members. Many rightly pilloried Bishop Lee for succumbing to the pressure brought against him by the Presiding Bishop and her chancellor, and commencing lawsuits he almost certainly did not want. But his vote yesterday perhaps could be read as a pretty open vote of no confidence in her, and a condemnation of the devastation she has wrought. Maybe, just maybe, he was having a Cranmerian moment.

Years from now, this action by the House of Bishops may well prove to have been a tipping point for the Episcopal Church. There are many for whom this will be the final straw, not because they have any association or necessarily even agreement with Bishop Duncan, but because it reveals what a corrupt organization they find themselves a part of. Others will realize that they cannot any longer do business with (and certainly not follow) those for whom words are meaningless, law is nothing more than an instrument of power, and truth is nonexistent. And still others will leave weary of the fight, and yearning for spiritual refreshment they cannot get from what is now indisputably a secular organization (and actually something less than most secular organizations, since few could abide such dishonesty in their leaders). In short, the exodus of the orthodox will continue and likely accelerate. This is likely exactly what the Presiding Bishop and her minions want, as they undoubtedly believe that if all the retrograde evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics would just go away, there’s no limit to the greatness a progressive Episcopal Church can achieve. The evidence, of course, has been quite to the contrary, but perhaps the accelerating membership loss will help put the lie to this fantasy. The Presiding Bishop may think that in supposedly beheading the orthodox movement, she will have caused disarray in their ranks. On this she is likely to be unpleasantly surprised also.

If there is any hope on the Presiding Bishop’s part that this will deter those stalwart orthodox bishops outside North America who have supported Bishop Duncan and the orthodox, she is likely to be further disappointed. There is now little to deter them from recognizing another North American province, and recognizing Bishop Duncan as the legitimate Anglican primate in North America. And in doing so they will be speaking for a majority of the world’s Anglicans. She can dismiss that, citing whatever old Anglican bureaucratic and colonial structures she cares to, but the fact will be that most of the world’s Anglicans will soon see the bishop she tried to depose as legitimate, and her as irrelevant. And while the Episcopal Church in numbers and assets will make this new province appear inconsequential, the real story will be told in growth percentages, a concept foreign to most Episcopalians.

Finally, it’s worth considering what difference yesterday’s events will have in an average Episcopal Church, ones such as our two parishes here. I think it’s plain enough that there will be little if any effect in the short run. The chances that even a half-dozen parishioners knew the House of Bishops was meeting is pretty small, and fewer still probably have any idea who Robert Duncan is. What happened doesn’t affect the work the altar guild has to do, or the music the choir is rehearsing. It doesn’t affect a parish’s social outreach. It doesn’t change the liturgy (yet), or alter the service times. Certainly it won’t occasion the interest of reorienting the furnishings in the church, or getting a new stained glass window. If the Presiding Bishop is betting on the ignorance or nonchalance of the average pew dweller, she is making a pretty sure bet.

 

 

 

Note: For additional information on Canons concering the Deposing of clergy, specifically Bishops refer to Canon 1.IV.1 also see Canon 9.IV.1