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OPEN
OPINION OR EMPTY PLEA?
A
Response to "An Open Opinion on the Authority of General Convention"
By
The Rev. Samuel L. Edwards, Anglican
Church
of
Saint Mary
the
Virgin,
Southern Maryland
, and The Rev. Charles H. Nalls, Canon Law Institute
THE
CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE,
Washington
,
DC
9 January 2003.
DURING THE FIRST WEEK of the new year (2003), a document signed by four
prominent conservative Episcopalian theologians and bearing the title "An
Open Opinion on the Authority of General Convention" was circulated widely
on the internet. The Opinion proper is an analysis of the conciliar
nature of the Episcopal Church and contains recommendations for dealing with the
situation that will be created later this year if and when the General
Convention of that body permits and/or promotes the blessing of same-sex
couplings.
It
is the contention of the Opinion's writers* that, while a General Convention
that enacted or embraced same-sex unions would fatally compromise its own
legitimacy and abdicate any claim to obedience by those seeking to remain
faithful to the apostolic faith, nevertheless no one in ECUSA should leave it on
that account. The recommended course of action is fairly summed up in the final
two paragraphs of the Opinion's cover letter:
"For
us, there is no painless answer. "Local
option" only legitimates a disregard for the counsel and constraint of
those with whom we share the common bread and cup. Mutual subjection is not
"permission." Our common
life must reflect the intimacy of those who live together "in the
Lord" (cf: Eph. 6:1). We are
called to "forbearance," not "tolerance," and that
forbearance has as its aim a transformation of the Church into Christ's image.
That forbearance "up-builds" in the particular
"righteousness" that is Christ Jesus (cf: Rom 14:17, 19; 15:2),
embodied in His sacrifice of holiness (cf: Phil. 2:5ff), and enacted within
the Church, through the Holy Spirit, "for common good" (I Cor. 12:7)
and the glorification of the Father(Rom 15:7).
It is in this light that "local option" is antithetical to
the nature of the Church as a vehicle of common and mutually sacrificial
transformation in Christ (Phil 2:2ff). Our
destiny in Christ can only be together and in mutual submission. It cannot be
a destiny at a distance from each
other. We cannot cut ourselves free from the weighty concerns of
the larger context of the church's witness without separating ourselves
from the spiritual mission of the Body of Christ.
The
temptations of separation affect us all. We
offer this analysis, not only to caution those who advocate unilateral action
by General Convention, but also to warn against overreaction. The current
failures of our church, and the unfortunate prospect of a General Convention
that takes unconstitutional action in approving of same-sex partnership, do
not remove from us the obligations of mutual submission.
As we argue, a constitutional crisis in the Episcopal Church will
profoundly compromise our national structures of governance, but it will not
void our vows of obedience and our bonds of loyalty to the church.
The failures of our system of governance must be endured with the
confidence that God calls us to forbear each other because He also shall
forbear us, even in the disordered state of our church (2 Peter 3:9).
It
is the purpose of this paper to challenge the conclusions of the authors of
"An Open Opinion" on three related grounds:
First, as has happened repeatedly among traditionally-minded Anglicans over
the years, they fail to recognize the nature of the enemy they are facing:
What is confronting those who would continue to be faithful Christians in
ECUSA is not, at bottom, a correctable error regarding the nature and
application of the apostolic faith, but rather an implacable hostility -- now
directed through the governing and educational institutions of ECUSA -- both
toward the faith and toward all who adhere to it. The root problem is not
intellectual but spiritual -- it originates from "principalities and
powers," from "the father of lies,"
and not simply from misunderstanding and ignorance on the part of
otherwise well-meaning people (though well-meaning people are captivated by the
revisionist program and used by it for ends which they themselves cannot, or
will not, see.) They evidently have
not appropriated the fact, which is now virtually self-evident, that the
revisionists/ progressives in ECUSA will not rest until -- by whatever means --
everyone agrees with them.
Second,
in spite of an impressive concern for the proclamation of the right doctrine of
Christ in the Church, in the end the writers of the "Opinion" appear
to have no quarrel with the highly suspect (from a biblical and patristic
viewpoint) principle enunciated a few years ago by then-Archbishop of Canterbury
George Carey, who said that our concern for unity (meaning institutional unity)
ought to take precedence over our concern for right doctrine (which is the
accurate and faithful transmission of the "whole counsel of God").
There appears to be no conceivable circumstance or combination of circumstances
under which the writers of this statement would counsel members of ECUSA to
depart its communion and separate from it institutionally.
Third,
the notion of "mutual submission" which they commend in their cover
letter, and upon which their advice to remain within ECUSA is flawed.
What they mean by it is nowhere defined by them, so its meaning must be
inferred from the text. When this is
done, it appears that what they call "mutual submission" owes more to
the 17th century notion of nonresistance to corrupt but legitimate authority
than it does to the teaching of Scripture, tradition, and Anglican history.
Thus, it becomes simply an apologia for corporatism and a provision of
opportunity for revisionists to work further corruption on the members of the
Body.
What
the writers of the "Opinion" describe as "mutual submission"
on close examination appears to have no genuine mutuality in it at all. For that
to be present, the parties submitting to one another must be working toward a
common end, which is not the case between the contenders in ECUSA, as noted
above. The phrase "mutual
submission," as used in the cover letter (it does not appear in the main
body of the"Opinion")
appears to signify not much more than an agreement to stay under one
institutional umbrella and is thus functionally indistinguishable from the
course of"living into each other's [provisional and uncertain] truth"
followed by ECUSA's current Presiding Bishop.
The writers of the "Opinion" marshal some weighty arguments in support
of their conclusions, but the arguments are not comprehensive:
They seem to take little account of those elements of the New Testament
and Patristic tradition which would suggest that separating heretics from the
fellowship of the Church (or recognizing that by their teaching an practice
these have separated themselves) is a faithful course of action in the interests
of the continued health of the Body.
Still
less do the writers of the "Opinion" seem willing to apply the
principles they educe to an evaluation of the history both of the Reformation in
general and of the Anglican enterprise in particular. Assuming that what they
enunciate are genuine principles, and hence amenable to universal application,
there is no valid reason for the Anglican churches to have come to an
independent existence in the first place -- a position with which ultramontanist
Roman Catholics would agree, but which is surprising coming from a group of
theologians which includes at least one member who has written at length and
with approbation of the "protestant face of Anglicanism".
Furthermore,
if the principles commended are universally applicable, there is no valid excuse
for the separation of the
United States
from the
British Empire --
a position which might appeal to a few monarchist eccentrics here and abroad,
but which would be strange coming from four Americans, only one
of whom is resident in
Britain
.
There
is much that is true, good, worthwhile and useful in the "Opinion,"
but in the end it is insufficient to deal with the crisis it addresses.
It would have a chance were the opposing parties seeking the same end and
caring about the same, but they are not. Any
hopes it raises are bound to be broken on this hard reality.
The fact is that long ago ECUSA -- not just in its General Convention but
in most of its other major institutions -- cut itself free from such weighty
theological and constitutional concerns as those addressed by the writers of
this document. Thus, not entirely
through their own fault, what is styled an "Open Opinion" in reality
is a tragically empty plea.
The
Opinion's authors include R.R. Reno, PhD; Christopher Seitz, PhD; Philip Turner,
PhD; and Paul Zahl, Dr. Theol.
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