I actually do regard being a rector/vicar as working for the bishop and sharing his ministry locally.  Besides he was my boss in the roles I had in that diocese.  To me “working for means accountable.  When the Bishop shows up he tells us what to do etc,.  Even though called by a search team it was the Bishop who instituted us. If you were ever a vicar then the relationship was even more direct than as a rector. Such is my view of episcopacy!  We clearly differ!

Daniel Weir - 04 March 2010 01:40 PM

Ian Montgomery - 04 March 2010 12:47 PM

Dear Dan,
When we both worked for +Alex Stewart in W. Mass do you not remember that he was a great pains continually to point out that we were Episcopal, therefore ruled and governed by bishops?

Ian,

That is not how I remember it. First, I never worked for Bp Stewart and I suspect he never would have used that way of describing my service in four conrgegations in WMass. Secon, Bp Stewart once joked about the limits of his authority, saying that if he could he would appoint me as rector in Southbridge and Eakins as rector is South Hadley - or vice versa. Finally, I think Bp Stewart would agree with the principle of episcopally led and synodically governed.

Daniel

Daniel:

Let’s be clear about something.  You initially grossly misrepresented Stephen Noll’s argument when you wrote

I find the disdain with which he views those who were elected to represent their Churches not at all surprising, but more than enough reason for me to view his entire proposal with the greatest scepticism. Perhaps - and here I know I am being a tad snarky - Noll’s next essay can be on The Divine of Kings.

And so I find it disturbing to see you get your hackles up when I respond to you.  You may choose to engage with me or not, but you should at least fairly engage an argument when you read it, instead of misrepresent it.  Stephen Noll was NOT arguing against lay involvement in church governance.  He WAS arguing that bishops should be the guardians of the apostolic faith and order.  To suggest that Dr. Noll’s argument is equivalent to the “divine right of kings” is simply misrepresenting what he said.  Dr. Noll is arguing that while there is a place for lay and clergy to assist in church governance, it is the bishops who are properly given the task of guarding doctrine.

I did not, in fact use “politician” as an insult - my BA was in political science, and I remain a keen student and observer of the political process in all forms.  Rather I was using “politician” in the pure sense of the word.  Remember, Daniel, that it was YOU who challenged Dr. Noll’s argument that bishops should be where the buck stops on guarding the apostolic faith and order.  As I see it, we are discussing two possible options here: 1) bishops guard the faith and order; OR 2) lay and/or clerical politicians guard the faith and order.  I presented arguments which I believe support my contention that, in the end, clerical and lay representatives to the ACC are, in fact, political appointees of the “ruling party” of a given church (and this would apply to lay reps from say Nigeria or Uganda also) and hence could properly be seen as “politicians”.  You suggested, with your “divine right of kings” quip, that bishops could not possibly represent the laity.  My response is that your alternative is to have folks that really function as “lay politicians” represent the laity instead, and that, in my opinion, that is no more representative then bishops.

Regarding my quip about “authoritarian marxist baptist polity”, is that really different then your quip about Noll advocating a “divine right of kings” as it relates to bishops?  Not sure why you find the one so offensive and the other one okay.  And in any case, I wasn’t meaning “you” as in “Daniel Weir” is advocating this, but rather the generic “you”, such that IF “you” argue X, then you are, by necessity, also arguing for the natural consequence Y.  You will recall that the liberals in TEC criticized the Dar request because it was said that bishops alone could NOT bind TEC to not permit SSB’s or homosexual bishops.  This is saying, Daniel, that under that theory of church polity, bishops are NOT competent on their own, to guard the apostolic faith, doctrine and discipline.  Rather, it is saying that the bishops MUST defer to General Convention’s definition of the faith, doctrine and discipline of the church.  We also see in liberal argumentation as regards Bp. Lawrence in SC that he must be bound to the doctrinal definitions made by General Convention, and that for him to reject something passed by General Convention is tantamount to “abandonment of communion.”  Thus it seems clear that if General Convention alone may decide doctrine and that diocesan bishops are compelled to follow that definition, then you no longer have an entity that is “episcopally led” in any meaningful sense.  Rather, you have a central committee (i.e. General Convention) whose representatives are not elected at large, but rather come out of a convuluted and non-representative political process that is controlled in many dioceses by the diocesan “establishment”.  In my opinion, the closest political model that I can think of to such a system is a “marxist” one.  As for “baptist”, you are right that that is NOT the best descriptor, I think that what I am suggesting exists in TEC would be closer to a “presbyterian” model.

Another thought about our polity: if we don’t want to lay people and “lesser” clergy to have any role in how the Episcopal Church defines its profession of faith, then let’s put the revision of the BCP in the hands of Bishops alone. It was decided 200 years ago that in the polity of TEC our synods would include both lay people and priests - and not just Bishops. That is hardly “Marxist Baptist” polity!

if we don’t want to lay people and “lesser” clergy to have any role in how the Episcopal Church defines its profession of faith

But that is not what is being argued Daniel.  Rather, by all means include laity, clergy and bishops all in coming up with a profession of faith.  An example - let’s say that this body includes the following in its profession of faith:

“We reject the idea that Jesus Christ died on the cross.”

At that point, in a proper episcopal (small “e”) polity, the responsibility would fall on the bishops to reject this false teaching, even if the majority of the lesser clergy and laity still supported it.

If you suggest that the bishops defense of the faith should be able to be “outvoted” by the lesser clergy and lay persons, then you are, by DEFINITION, advocating for a “presbyterian” form of governance (and yes, I stand corrected on the “baptist” epithet, but it is such a fun word to use ).  The “marxist” moniker, of course, refers more to HOW the supreme lay/clergy/bishop council/committee/general convention is elected or appointed, not to the actual function of the body itself.

It seems that I have not only been a bit snarky but also unclear about my position, although I have to say that I think I have been misinterpreted.

I have not argued that Bishops should not exercise their role as defenders of the faith. I did disagree with Dr. Noll’s suggestion that the Primates replace the Standing Committee as the body charged with reponsibility for handling proposed amendments to the covenant. Had I left it at that and not spoken of my discomfort with the idea that Lambeth resolutions expressed the mind of Communion, I might have not gotten into an argument with James.

In raising the question of the revision of the BCP, I was not suggesting that the House of Bishops not have a role in that process, but recognizing that on an important expression of our faith both Houses have had a role and that either House can refuse to accept the judgment of the other House. I see this as an indication that Bishops are not solely responsible for the defense of the faith. If the BCP is, as I believe it is, a statement of the Church’s theology, of what we believe, of doctrine, then we have an established pattern of shared authority in mstters of doctrine. To run the risk of predicting the future, I am lead to belive that the filioque - the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son - will be deleted from the Nicene Creed when the BCP is revised. That is a clear statement of doctrine and the change cannot be made by either House alone. While I am not all that familiar with the BCP process in Canada, I would be surprised if the Bishops alone made the decision to eliminate the filioque from their BCP.

One can argue that TEC is wrong to allow anyone but the Bishops to have a hand in defining doctrine, but the decision to allow that was made a long time ago and I continue to think it was the right one.

Finally, I admit that I have not had the time to consider all of Dr. Noll’s arguments and that it may have been imprudent of me to engage only with the one suggestion. However, I do stand by my assertion that Dr. Noll has little respect for those who serve on the ACC.

Daniel:  Thanks for your note.  Yes, I can be snarky too.  But debate and argumentation help challenge what we think and believe, and I appreciate your input even when I vigorously disagree with you.  For what it’s worth, my position is that when it comes to faith, doctrine and discipline, I think it good to include all levels of the church in discussions.  However, the buck needs to stop with those individuals which we believe (as a matter of ecclesiology) have been called by God to be the guardians of faith, doctrine and discipline.  It is like an employment situation.  If I am the supervisor, my preferred method is to genuinely include my direct reports in developing policies.  However, in the end, it must remain my call as to whether a policy fits in with the institutional goals or not.

The issue with the implementation and enforcement of the Covenant has to do with “where the buck stops” on issues of faith, doctrine and discipline.  That is part of the very nature of what the Covenant is meant to address - when does an action violate the essential faith, doctrine or discipline of the Communion?  As such, I think that it is quite properly the role of the lead bishops (i.e. primates) of the Communion to coordinate the enforcement of the Covenant.  I would also argue strongly that there should be an appeal from any primatial decision to the Lambeth gathering of all bishops.

To advocate this is not to suggest that there is no role for the ACC or a “standing committee”, but rather to suggest that this role is not appropriate for it.

Regarding, Dr. Noll and the ACC delegates, I don’t know.  My impression is that he is not so much critical of the representatives themselves so much as the manipulation that seems to have gone on with respect to this new “standing committee” by a coalition of the Lambeth bureaucracy and western liberal leadership.  He backs up his assertions with facts, and so I think his allegations are fair and substantiated.  My feeling on the ACC is that it is what it is, and that it is not what it is not.  I don’t see it as meaningfully representative of the Communion, though I am not sure that there is any realistic way that any body could be truly representative.  It is a global council made up of folks who have been appointed/elected out of a political process in each member church.  Most of them are surely honorable folks in their own way.  But it is neither truly representative of the communion at large, nor is it representative of the many Anglican individuals across the globe.

James, as Daniel has noted you fling invective with the best of them.  Marxist Baptist, apparatchiks… I love it actually and so am freed of your complaint about invective.

GC is and always has been one State (now Diocese) one vote.  It is more like the Senate than the Houses of Representatives.  We have never pretended to be otherwise and indeed the one Diocese one vote was the only way small tates like CT would even sign on in the face of big “ASA” states like VA.  The change in tenor of the GC has taken 50 years to accomplish, so it is hardly the work of a secret cabal, nor is it impulsive.  The considered choice of people over decades of time was simply NOT for conservatives.  Deal with it, seriously.  Conservatives have had every chance to make their case and have failed over and over again.  You can foist that off on machinations, which is fine with me because then you will never improve your message or its manner of delivery and thus continue to lose the discursive battle for votes.

Y’all—and let me say here that I use y’all as a catch all for the detractors of TEC— lose because you employ demands and ultimatums and threats having failed to persuade.  And the present discussion about the next steps for the covenant is another fine example of how conservatives screw up:  when they don’t get what they want as they wanted it they whinge and seek to change the rules.  In the joust over the final version of the AC y’all were knocked off your horse despite having had a stacked committee that wrote the dang thing.  So now the 4 IU’s the Covenant are all to be replaced by your latest escapade, Primatial Autocracy.  Good luck with that one.

In addition you misrepresent GC’s voting structure.  It is conservative because the ability for a small minority to call for a vote by orders, which itself counts a split vote as a no vote means that in contested situations a No vote is easier to achieve.  That conservatives can no longer manage to must even enough votes to persuade in such an environment is not a sign of erosion in numbers…. Ft. Worth, Pittsburgh and SJ still voted conservatively, for example,  it is a sign that your manners and method are no longer worthy of respect.

And as long as it is all about whinging against TEC we will prevail, so keep it up.

Is not TEC a kind of “Republic” as opposed to a Democracy?

As to bishops, I view them as a key piece of what makes Anglicans “catholic.” Interesting to note that in the ancient Church, the laity participated in the selection of a bishop, and it seems to be an unfortunate consequence of Constantinism (sp?) that the power to select bishops passed out of the hands of the laity.

But TEC has strayed in a different direction - a Western, individualistic, direction (which ironically also conflicts with the anti-clericalism that seems endemic to TEC).

Michael:  Yes, I do enjoy trading barbs with you.  I will credit you for not whining (nor even whinging, whatever that might be ) when I respond colorfully to your invective.  You dish it out, but you take it well.  You are correct that liberals have won the day in TEC.  They have clearly been more skilled at manipulating the political process then have conservatives.  Clearly anyone who does not realize this isn’t living in reality.  On the other hand, the more control the liberals have had over TEC, the greater has been its decline.  Thus I would suggest that with the staggering decline of TEC over the last 10 years, the liberals are also reaping the consequences of their actions. 

I would say that pointing out that General Convention is not representative of TEC laity is not whining.  I think that it is partially this disconnect that is causing the problems.  I recall in the Diocese of New Westminster, back around 2000, the conservatives challenged Michael Ingham to make diocesan synod more representative of the diocese, given that the very small liberal parishes were grossly overrepresented; or for the diocese to permit every Anglican in the diocese to have an equal say on the same-sex marriage rites question.  Ingham, of course, refused.  He won his Synod vote and claimed that “the diocese” had voted this way.  But the diocese hadn’t, because Ingham had refused to let the diocese have a say.  Rather the unrepresentative Synod voted his way.  And yes, that was clever politically (though the diocese there is now cash-strapped and closing parishes left, right and center) but pointing out the subsequent consequences isn’t whining, it is simply pointing out reality.

I see TEC like a patient that has entered hospice care.  It is in its terminal stages.  There is a cure out there, but the patient has refused to take the medicine.  There remains value to care for the folks still in TEC as the institution dies.  I was not born into TEC, and quite frankly, I don’t really care if TEC dies or not.  When I converted to becoming Anglican, I did so out of love for the global Anglican Communion, liturgy and the broad-minded, comprehensive yet still very much orthodox Anglican theology that I saw (and still do see) in Anglicanism at its best.  When I moved to the USA, I saw much good in TEC, but I also saw a good deal of pride, hubris, classism, individualism, poor theology and a deadening ingrown, cliquish attitude.  And that goes for the conservatives just as much as the liberals.  So it is very much my belief that North American Anglicanism is undergoing some well deserved chastening right now.  I think that all sides are still in need of further chastening - both TEC and ACNA, though in different ways.  Hence my take on many issues isn’t exactly what your conservative caricature straw man would necessarily have.

Take properties.  I actually think that it is enormously beneficial for the Anglican parishes to lose their properties as it accomplishes three purposes: 1) unites and fires up the people; 2) forces them to adjust out of lethargy into mission; and 3) helps purge the pride and hubris out of the church.  All three are absolutely necessary to happen for the church to survive into the 21st century, but none of the three are likely to happen unless each congregation gets a major boot in the hindquarters.  The property loss is that boot.  My problem with the whole property issue is actually more that I think the courts are engaging in a gross violation of the Establishment Clause.  I think that whoever has the title deed should legally own the property, and that churches should not be exempted from normal law.  But that is a debate we won’t agree on.

I actually would chart a course similar to Bp. Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina rather then that chosen by the Bp. Duncan and the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  But in either case, if I were planting new churches in my diocese I would do so under the aegis of the ACNA and not my TEC diocese.  My philosophy is that if your parish or diocese is still in TEC, then stay there.  Be sure to strongly differentiate yourself, work it out so CANONICALLY to keep as much money away from the diocese as possible, and for any future building, be sure to create legal ownership that TEC can not touch (it can be done), but stay in TEC.  But all new churches that are being planted should be done outside of TEC, though perhaps in partnership with existing TEC parishes. 

As I have pointed out, the world isn’t as simple as you seem to think it is.  There is not one monolithic conservative block, just as there is not monolithic liberal block.  I am ambivalent about much of the ACNA - for example, I don’t think that it is anywhere near ready to be recognized as its own Province yet.  My belief is that things will continue falling apart, and at some point in the future, there is going to be a mess to clean up.  I can’t stop TEC from committing institutional suicide, and quite frankly, I’m not going to shed many tears when it comes crashing down.  Nor am I convinced that the ACNA will successfully resolve all of its divisions and extinguish all of the egos and private turf protection.  Both groups need more breaking before things have bottomed out and the rebuilding can begin.

James Wirrel - 04 March 2010 05:47 PM

The issue with the implementation and enforcement of the Covenant has to do with “where the buck stops” on issues of faith, doctrine and discipline.

James,

I don’t disagree that “where the buck stops” is important. While I would disagree with excluding lay people and priests from a role in dealing with possible violations of the Covenant, that was not my point in my earlier post - it was that I didn’t agree with Noll’s proposal to give the Primates sole responsibility for handling proposed amendments. I don’t see the wisdom of that, especially since in mant member Churches those amendments would be acted on by synods with lay and clerical and epissopal members.

Daniel

One of the things that I find interesting about our view of the authority of Bishops is that all of us, to some extent, like Bishops to exercise authority when it is in support of our position. When we are - as clergy and lay people - under the authority of a Bishop with whom we disagree, we are tempted to look for one more to our liking. Some of us do that by thinking of a Bishop who isn’t our Bishop as being our real Bishop, the one whose authority we would gladly accept. Others of us go the whole way and move so that he can be our Bishop. I don’t think this is altogther a bad thing. I think we often can grow and minister more effectively when we’re not always at loggerheads with the Bishop. But there is a danger that we will miss the growth that comes from disagreement - either as our own convictions become stronger or as we see that the Bishop with whom we disagreed did at times have an understanding of the Gospel that we had missed. There is also the danger of believing, because most of those around us agree with us, that there are no other legitimate understandings of the faith. We can find ourselves living in a theological ghetto.

I was very critical of then Bp Duncan when he restored a priest who had been deposed for repeatedly refusing to allow his Bishop make a visitation to his parish. The priest’s argument was that he didn’t want to expose his parishioners to the Bishop’s heretical preaching. It was my view that if he were an effective preacher and teacher his parishioners could withstand heresy every few years - we get enough of it from religious broadcasting.

John Stott once spoke about what he called rabbit hole Christianity - living in our Christian home - scurrying across the wicked world to our Christian office - and then to our Christian club - and then back to safety ofour Christian home. Stott saw that as missed opportunity for evangelism. I also see it as missed for encounters with people - including non-Christians and Christians with whom we have major disagreements - encounters that can help us to grow.

James,

  I am glad to see we can play well together!  General Convention’s “blinkers” if there are such is connected to incumbency. The more times you serve the better assignments you get.  Bishops have instant incumbency cause they just get to go.  But the clergy and laity have to make the case for themselves every three years, and sometimes that case includes choice committee work.  I personally am not sure that being on a committee is the bestest thing to do, but I did enjoy working on one.  I personally would prefer a situation in which the chairs were people with experience, then everyone else could bid for the committees they wished to be on and those committees would be filled by “lot”. 

  I have had long discussion on the HoBD list challenging the notion that TEC’s liberality has something to do with is loss of numbers.  There is some recent poll that liberal churches do not hold members, but it is not because they are liberal, but because they are not angst ridden about numbers and membership.  The kind of people we are most ready to hang out with are not particularly joiners of institutions.  But that debate will go on and on.

  Time will tell.