Cross-posted at Shreds and Patches

All seems oddly quiet on this day when Canon Mary Glasspool will be ordained and consecrated at a Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles. Yet the consequences may well be graver than ensued after the Bishop of New Hampshire was consecrated in 2003. Then it could be said with some plausibility that no one in the Episcopal Church realized what a fuss would emerge. No one is in any doubt this time. The Archbishop of Canterbury has made it clear that there will be consequences for TEC in its relationship with the Communion and there will be consequences within the Communion.

I read this morning an interview in the Baltimore Sun with Canon Glasspool which includes a short video.

A number of points were raised which invite comment. The first is very indicative of our present mood. Is Canon Glasspool a nice person? It seems she is, but what on earth does her niceness have to do with anything? One would hope that any cleric, yes, even a bishop-elect, might be nice. But niceness isn’t a qualification for ordination.

It is said that she is a good priest and that quality, at least to the newspaper, is demonstrated by the fact that she pastored an elderly couple who then died and left her parish nearly $3 million. I am genuinely delighted that she is a good priest. Yet the crisis facing the communion has nothing at all to do with her personal traits or her pastoral ability.

In the interview Canon Glasspool made a couple of points which bothered me. She stated that there is no such thing as the Anglican Church: there is merely the Anglican Communion. Her present bishop muttered something about the Communion being a federation of churches.

I would love to sit them both down with the Archbishop of Canterbury for a chat about ecclesiology. Indeed I would like to hear some explanation about why a Communion is not a Church and why a Church cannot be a Communion. There was also some mention that the Episcopal Church is growing in its self-understanding, as if it were a patient undergoing therapy.

Setting aside the very impoverished doctrine of the church here presented, it is well to remind us that the basic problem with today’s ceremony has not a thing to do with anything I have written above.

The Anglican Communion through its “elder brother,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, asked the Episcopal Church not to proceed with anymore consecrations of same-gendered partnered people. The leadership of the Episcopal Church agreed, then prevaricated, then agreed again and then decided to ignore everything that had been said. TEC may cling to the hope that the support it gets from Canada, perhaps New Zealand, Brazil, perhaps Mexico and some parts of its own mini-Communion, and from individuals in western churches, may prove strong enough to deter anything more than a vague wrist slap. We shall see. But it is not difficult to predict that if TEC gets away with it yet again, the consequences for the unity of the whole Communion will be dire.
View the original post

Thanks again Tony+ this is trenchant.  I thought that I had better check your report of her understanding of the AC - not lack of trust in you, but it was so incredibly wrong as to need checking - here it is in all its error.

“The Anglican Communion has never been anything other than a loosely knit federation of churches,” said Glasspool. “The kind of unity we may be seeking may be a hierarchical central kind of unity, but that’s a new thing for the Anglican Communion ... You notice it’s not the Anglican Church; it’s the Anglican Communion.”
M. Glasspool in the Baltimore Sun

I would rephrase it as “because we have treated the AC as simply a loose federation of churches, then .....”  In other words the tightening up and redefinition of the AC into what we might define as the Anglican Church Worldwide has been made necessary by the actions of TEC in its reckless pursuit of its own agenda, AND in spite of the clear warnings from the rest of the AC as to the effect.

I wonder what might be the next steps?  Certainly the ABC’s silence has been deafening.  I am sure the PB et al, think that they are somehow untouchable and will escape sanction.  I would love to wake up from this nightmare and find some kind of both strong statement and imposition of sanctions by the ABC.  However I am not holding my breath.  I have likened him to ELI in another response on this site.  Meanwhile the slow train wreck and break up of the AC continues.  IMHO it is broken, torn apart and unlikely ever to be experienced the way it was before all this happened.  My prayers are not for the restoration of something past and gone.  I pray for a new thing, a work of God, a new AC.  Thanks be to God, I believe it is coming to pass in ACNA, the GS and GAFCON.  Now the issue is not the Covenant but God willing something like the Jerusalem Declaration.  I for one am not looking back.  I remember Lot’s wife.

A sad day for TEC and the AC.  The promised land awaits and it is not TEC, nor an AC “lead” by the present incumbent.

Ian,
I share and agree with your thoughts on this. Today, I am sad about this. It is like the loss of a sibling. There is such a finality about it. There is no turning back for TEC. It has sealed its fate. What happened?

Dale, Bless you. 
I would describe this as a black day - as you say, finality.  Something is irretrievably lost.  Time to move on.
I keep thinking of I Peter 4:17  
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

here is my own reaction, cross-posted from http://anglicanecumenicalsociety.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/301/ - not so much about the event itself as its consequences within the larger picture.

Anglicans and Unity

We as Anglicans sometimes make the mistake of emphasizing unity at the expense of other things, and furthermore, maintaining a very narrow-minded notion of “unity.”

We are not unlike a family with a prominent member who attacks and maims passersby before its home, but then lies to the authorities about these events, and fails to curb the predations of this member, justifying itself to others by saying it cannot do otherwise because it values charity.

“Unity” pertains not only to life amongst our own little group of Anglicans representing a small percentage of those committed to Christ, but also to how the whole body of Christ behaves together.

We are inducing fundamentalism in many areas of the communion and in the whole body of Christ with our Primate who denies the resurrection and the divinity of Christ. We are the agents of spiritual death for the many who come into contact with Anglican priests, bishops, and church leaders, who deny the very things that Christ taught us about himself.

Maintenance of unity within the Anglican Communion is sowing massive division within the body of Christ. As long as this is the case, the question of “what serves unity best for Anglicans” must be moot compared to the question of “how can we best serve Christian unity, and prevent our own diseases and evil from afflicting those around us.”

We are no longer a body that needs worry about schism; we ourselves have become a schism within the Church Catholic.

James,
What is established is that she, in an interview in Time Magazine denied the uniqueness of Christ which is in direct opposition to Article XVIII. 
 

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?
[KJS]We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.

July 10th 2006.

Dale, see also http://anglicanecumenicalsociety.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/what-do-people-mean-when-they-say-that-presiding-bishop-schori-has-denied-the-resurrection-or-the-divinity-of-christ/

I’m not sure that the sort of remarks attributed to the PB are the result of deep theological research. It begins with an idea about community, driven by culture and in many ways it is as reactive as fundamentalism, which today is reflective of the counter culture. Liberals want to demonstrate that they are not narrow or bigotted. They look at western society in its diversity and don’t want to be thought to think that people of other religions, or even non-believers are excluded. They see exclusion in terms of the battles for “rights” and “justice”.

From there they seek to frame Christianity in a manner which embraces all, including those who doubt the doctrines of the creeds. But at the same time they do want to be found within the Christian tradition. They don’t want to go as far as Unitarian Universalists. Indeed they have a real if sentimental attachment to Jesus and to sacramental faith.

As their approach is colored by their cultural distain for what they perceive to be the intolerance of traditionalists, they can’t engage with or “hear”  the message of Scripture, Creeds, Councils, in part because they are convinced that the Early Church period is one in which religious pluriformity was stiffled by a male-driven, intolerant orthodoxy.  And yet they want to cling to a tradition they claim to see within the tradition, which is now reappearing as God acts in TEC. There is no real difference in this approach except in its cultural trappings from other sects who have sought to jump back to a golden age, before all went wrong, and reconstruct the genuine church of Jesus. I think we really need to get inside this often inconsistent and wobbly view and engage or attempt to engage not in polemics but in a clear-headed examination of Christian origins. We must also take care that our own cultural subconscious processes are not a formidable interpreter of biblical/“traditional” faith and practice.

I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.

I continue to be encouraged by Jesus’ words from yesterday’s Gospel. Our unity is based in what Jesus has done. Our unity is not contingent on what we have done, are doing, or will do.

Welcome Randy - great to see you online.  Blessings - Ian

Randy Hoover Dempsy,

Our unity is not contingent on what we have done, are doing, or will do.

I disagree.
“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Fr. Clavier, very good observation.  Thanks for that.

BTW, if you read the article linked above, you’ll find that it’s more than just allegations of what the PB has said - both sources came from http://episcopalchurch.org - the Parabola Magazine interview was, for a while, available from their site, linked from the page about the PB.  The other is from ENS.  The PB must also have been aware for some time about widely-circulated complaints about both quotes, as they’ve been in an open letter to Rowan Williams from a Primate from more than a year back.

I agree that it’s not deep theological thinking on her part - but it’s also, when you come down to it, a bit of a no-brainer that these things amount to a denial of the resurrection and the divinity of Christ.  There seem to be earnest hopes on the part of some Episcopalians that there will indeed be “justified loopholes” to escape the conclusion that she has denied the church’s doctrines on these matters.  The bulk of the article is really mostly just showing that the statements final enough, and there are no reasonable loopholes.  But any person who cares a jot for the doctrines of the resurrection or the divinity of Christ, on reading these things will realize that there is something earnestly wrong here.

I understand the reticence of Episcopalians to even want to read this kind of thing.  I was very very reluctant to write it.  But if the PB is making public statements like this, and the church site is carrying it - well, it’s out in the open, folks.  There’s no hope any more of plastering things over, it’s more than official.

It may well be the first time in history that a church leader of this stature has done this.  If so, it’s much more significant than her being the first female Presiding Bishop - probably more significant than the consecrations of openly gay bishops as well.

author=“Fr. Tony Clavier”
As their approach is colored by their cultural distain for what they perceive to be the intolerance of traditionalists, they can’t engage with or “hear”  the message of Scripture, Creeds, Councils, in part because they are convinced that the Early Church period is one in which religious pluriformity was stiffled by a male-driven, intolerant orthodoxy.  And yet they want to cling to a tradition they claim to see within the tradition, which is now reappearing as God acts in TEC.

“Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest”
                  Simon & Garfunkel
                  ‘The Boxer’

Dale Matson

I disagree. “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault…

Our relationship to God (as children) and to one another (in the Body of Christ) is based on the gift of Jesus Christ and what He has won for us on the cross. I claim that reconciling work as a fact and choose to live in that reconciliation.

While I may disagree with how another member of the family of Christ may live, I trust that the Holy Spirit will, in time, work this out. And, in any case, the sin is not against me.

Greetings Ian. I’m traveling and sometimes off the grid. I hope you are well. Many blessings, Randy

Randy Hoover-Dempsey+

While I may disagree with how another member of the family of Christ may live, I trust that the Holy Spirit will, in time, work this out. And, in any case, the sin is not against me.

Fr. Randy, it is not the family of Christ, it is the body of Christ and therefore I may be an agent of the Holy Spirit.What if my brother is sinning against himself with abusing drugs. Do you keep quiet about this. You certainly would assist this brother with his burdens and not say, “Well, that is between him and the Holy Spirit”.

Dear Fr. Dale,
I believe what we are discussing is a question of focus. As disciples of Jesus, we are called to keep our eyes on Him. By looking at Jesus Christ, I am made aware of my own sinfulness and need of Him. I am also aware that He calls me to the same work of reconciliation that He was involved in and that He has accomplished.
And since I believe that it is His Church and His Body, I do believe that He can heal it (and us). So, yes, if I think my brother or sister is involved in sin, I do believe that my response is to pray that God may bring healing.
My experience is that the Holy Spirit is constantly involved in the sanctification of the family of Christ. (Jesus calls us His family, so I feel comfortable with His language.) My hunger is for more of Him, not for more of seeking out the sin of another.
I think Bonhoeffer’s comments in Life Together are very much to the point. I should only look at another member of the Body of Christ indirectly—Jesus should always stand between us.
Randy