Thank you for this, Richard, a very helpful and challenging observation.  The Sammeh book is available on Amazon, which also recommended “Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission” by David Jacobus Bosch, and another with which I am unfamiliar.  Is it worth a look?

While I am not right up-to-date on missiological reading these days, I would say that two of the most influential books of the last generation have been Sanneh’s and Bosch’s. Bosch’s work is fuller, and comes from that South African Reformed tradition that prods and pokes at everything in the process of reaching its conclusions, but put with “Translating the Message” there really is a lot to ponder.

I think one of the things that I didn’t say yesterday in my comments and ought, is that the Anglican Covenant is, in my mind, a missiological statement of intent because theology leads to missionary action. The error that those on the left, progressives, whatever, especially those in the American church, make is that they consider it a legal/canonical document to do with inclusion and exclusion.

fwiw - Bosch’s book has been used at VTS, at least the last time I was there (02 or so)

Jonathan Clatworthy of the Modern Churchpeople’s Union has posted a response to this on their website. http://www.modchurchunion.org/resources/clatworthy/2010-1.htm Because that site does not allow for response, I am posting mine here in the spirit of helpful conversation.

First, I would change his analogy a bit to fit the situation for aptly. Imagine this fellow at Birmingham wanted to go to Brighton, but the train is intended for Edinburgh. The supervisor looks at the felow’s ticket stub and says, “You’re on the wrong train. This train is headed for Brighton.”

The traveler replied, “But I need to get to Brighton! The who purpose of having trains is to get passengers where they want to go. It’s just a bureaucratic niggle that keeps this train from getting me where I want to go.”

In this analogy, the traveler views schedules as self-serving and the bureaucracy unwilling to change to meet his immediate needs, separate and apart from the needs of the larger community of travelers. He is able to get to Brighton, but not on this train. Similarly, those who wish to consecrate bishops living in sexually expressive relationships outside the bonds of Hoy Matrimony, and those who wish to bless same-sex unions may do so . . . but not in the name of this Church.

Not all change is bad. Not all change in the church is relationship- and communion-rending. Which changes are and which changes are not? At one level, the judges of history will determine. The examples I gave were of potential-relationship-breaking issues (or in the case of the first American prayer books, relationship-preventing) that were handled in such a way, namely relationally, to avoid the tearing of those Anglican relationships. I am speaking to the principle of the Covenant as a relationally-based way of dealing with this issue.

Why are the consecration of bishops in non-marital sexual relationships and the blessing of same-sex unions (and the crossing of diocesan boundaries and possibly lay presidency at the Eucharist) relationship-breaking occurrences? That is an essay for a different day and one I doubt I am fully competent to write on. However, the primates have said so. By their actions certain clergy, churches, and dioceses have shown so. The theological work was initially done by those bishops in 1998. Was that work definitive for all time? I don’t think so. Our bishops don’t purport to issue ex cathedra statements. But, certainly enough work was done by those bishops exercising their teaching office to establish the reason why the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of a bishop in a sexual relationship outside marriage is not an acceptable norm in Anglicanism.

The nature of community is such that it tests which actions are allowable and still maintain relationships. That is for the community to decide. Is Fr. Clatworthy arguing that, in Anglicanism, anything goes? Are there no norms? No standards of what is Anglican? Is border-crossing Anglican or is it non-Anglican? Are there any doctrinal boundaries in Anglicanism?

If there are no boundaries, I don’t really see a basis for community, because community, by definition, has boundaries. If there are boundaries, then who determines those boundaries? The proponents of the Covenant and Archbishop Williams specifically, have stated that it is those who agree to abide by the decisions of the community that ought to make those decisions.

We (post)moderns don’t like the idea of submitting to others, to an-other. Yet, that is what Christianity has always been about, taking up our cross daily. Not being conformed to the world but being transformed. Not being satisfied with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We are not our own, St. Paul says. I don’t always get my way, thank God. But am finding the older I grow, that the way of the cross is, indeed the way of life and peace.

Good response, Neil.  I have emailed Clatworthy and suggested that he respond here since the MCU provides no way for response on their site.

I want to thank Jonathan Clatworthy for personally sending me a response to my response. His was most gracious, and I appreciate it greatly. I am posting his response with his personal comments deleted as not germane to this conversation.  NM

Yes, our website isn’t geared up for comments at the moment. Our current webmaster is working on a number of innovations, and we anticipate the facility for comments, as your website has.

The train analogy. Your development boils down to the question “What is this train for?” So: what is the Church for? You seem to share with Rowan Williams a high doctrine of the Church – or at least, a good deal higher than mine. The Church is to be valued for its own sake, and therefore protected even at the expense of harm to others. When you talk about community, you mean the community of the Church. Relationship-breaking issues are issues that break relationships within the Church. On same-sex unions you write ‘That is an essay for a different day and one I doubt I am fully competent to write on. However, the primates have said so. By their actions certain clergy, churches, and dioceses have shown so. The theological work was initially done by those bishops in 1998.’ This seems to me to be a conversation-stopper. You don’t want to engage in the question of whether the 1998 Lambeth Conference was right about homosexuality. This is the central weakness of your position; and the weakness is revealed precisely because you have expressed your position so thoughtfully and honestly - unlike many others.

I have a background in ethics – I used to teach it. From an ethicist’s perspective, the case for preserving the ban on homosexuality has received a hammering over the last 50 years. The key point is that a homosexual orientation is not chosen, but fixed from birth. Plenty of studies have shown this. It’s also true that, as with climate change and the connection between lung cancer and smoking, it remains possible for a minority of researchers to point to contrary scientific evidence; but there is now a well established consensus that orientation is fixed from birth. It has also been observed in a wide variety of animals and birds. This raises the question: why should God give people this orientation and forbid them to practise it? From an ethicist’s perspective, the Primates and Lambeth 1998 have been extremely superficial in their engagement with the ethical issue.

Your position focuses on maintaining relationships within the community of the Church, and because that is your focus, it seems to me that you are ignoring other possible expressions of community and good relationships, like getting on well with gays and lesbians. As a result, you are in effect expelling gays and lesbians from your church community, which will mean they disappear altogether from the community you are concerned to defend.

My perspective on community is different. Far from seeing it as primarily about holding the Church together, I am suspicious of any artificial protection of a community which comes at the cost of excluding others. I disagree with your claim that ‘community, by definition, has boundaries’. Some communities do, but only the ones with fuzzy boundaries survive any length of time, and that’s how it should be: otherwise, ‘community’ becomes just a way of excluding people. (As in debates about immigration, for example.) In historical fact, churches do not have hard and fast boundaries. People join and leave, those on the fringe count as members for some purposes but not others, churches join and split. (Hence my less exalted ecclesiology).

So whereas you begin with your doctrine of the Church and squeeze the ethics of homosexuality to fit it, I begin with the ethical questions and expect the Church to engage with them openly and honestly, and admit its uncertainties. I think the kind of position which you are promoting is similar to that of Rowan Williams, and I would go so far as to describe it as immoral because it obliges gays and lesbians to spend their lives in celibacy in order to maintain your doctrine of the Church. I think it is that doctrine of the Church which needs to be reformed, not their sex lives.

The question of why persons are “born with” certain dispositions, quite part from whether God is instrumental; an emotive sentiment, the boundaries of which are problematic; can have no certain answer.  But why is sexual expression separate and different from other dispositions?

I would love to hear Craig’s response to Jonathan Clatworthy as he is more familiar with Hawerwaus’ views. But as I understand it, Hawerwaus would sharply rebuke the notion that the church should use norms outside the church to determine it’s ethics.

On a different but related point:

The key point is that a homosexual orientation is not chosen, but fixed from birth. Plenty of studies have shown this.

I don’t deny this point at all. It is the drawing of a conclusion from it that does not follow: “What is is what should be.” We can make a long list of things that “are” that no one believes “should be.” Diabetes is often “not chosen, but fixed from birth.” We speak of diabetes as a disease because we have a notion of the correct way for the body to deal with blood sugar levels, and diabetes is a deviation from that norm. What is precisely in question is whether or not there exists norms for human sexuality, and if so, does homosexuality fall within those norms or not.

Science certainly has a role to play in the discussion of the existence and nature of sexual norms. The question of homosexuality in non-human species is a case in point. However, this is subject to the same critique of “what is is what should be.” Lions routinely kill cubs. Men who kill children are put in prison. If lions are attempting to eliminate genetic competition from other males, why not let human males do the same thing?

So back to the nature of community. The Church must insist that its norms for community are correct. Anthropologists, sociologist, etc have important things to say about the nature of community, but they can never say what a community “should be.”