Ralph Webb
Note: This is a longer version of an article printed in the Spring 2007 Anglican Action Briefing.
Since the close of the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church in June 2006, Anglicans around the world had been anticipating the primates’ February 15-19, 2007, meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Now that the General Convention had delivered a partial, incomplete response to the requests made on behalf of the Anglican Communion in the 2004 Windsor Report, how would the leaders of Anglican provinces worldwide react? Would they hold the Episcopal Church accountable, or would they let it slide through?
The primates took a strong stand. Their final communiqué asked the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops to make an “unequivocal” change in its direction regarding the blessing of same-sex unions and the consent to the consecration of bishops living in same-sex relationships. Furthermore, both the communiqué and the draft covenant for the Anglican Communion unveiled in Tanzania stress the interdependence of all member provinces.
But the House of Bishops, meeting March 16-21 in Navasota, Texas, may have escalated a worsening confrontation. The bishops implied that the “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians was a central element of the Episcopal Church’s “gospel” and repeatedly asserted the Episcopal Church’s autonomy. Perhaps most damagingly, they rejected the primates’ initiation of a “pastoral scheme” partially intended to enable orthodox Anglicans within the Episcopal Church to remain “in faithful fellowship with the Anglican Communion.”
The Road to Tanzania
The Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report mostly was contained in General Convention resolution B033, the last-minute measure pushed through last June after a plea by then newly-elected Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. B033 asked bishops and diocesan standing committees to “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” The particular “manner of life” that currently “presents a challenge” is understood to be homosexual relations.
While some self-described “moderates” proclaimed that with the passage of B033, the Episcopal Church’s center had held, many Episcopalians thought otherwise. Progressive Episcopalians mostly were dismayed by the passage of a resolution that seemed, from their perspective, to roll back the Episcopal Church’s continuing march toward “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians. Orthodox Anglicans—both within and outside of the Episcopal Church—found the General Convention’s response inadequate, falling far short of what was requested in the Windsor Report.
And in the wake of the convention, many orthodox Anglicans left the Episcopal Church—often at the level of the entire parish. Christ Church Plano (TX), the parish with the largest average Sunday attendance in the entire denomination, was the first high-profile parish to depart; it eventually chose to move to the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). In December and January, 11 parishes left the Diocese of Virginia, most of them for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).
In response, both the Diocese of Virginia and the national church instigated lawsuits against the Virginia parishes; claimed (apparently as part of their legal strategy) that while parishioners could leave the Episcopal Church, parishes could not; and publicly downplayed the number of parishioners leaving, whom the diocese derogatorily called “dissidents” occupying Episcopal churches. Yet all of the Episcopal Church’s public relations efforts could not disguise a significant exodus from the denomination at the individual level. Furthermore, seven dioceses appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for oversight from a primate other than Bishop Jefferts Schori.
Progressives, meanwhile, succeeded in passing resolutions at a variety of diocesan conventions that opposed resolution B033. Some clergy and parishes continued to practice same-sex blessings, in defiance of the Windsor Report. Meanwhile, in sermons and interviews Bishop Jefferts Schori apparently strove to regain some of the goodwill that she had lost over her push for B033. By the time of the progressive Episcopal Urban Caucus assembly in early February, the applause and accolades given her indicated that many progressives had forgiven her and highly esteemed her.
All of these factors contributed to the context in which the primates’ meeting was held. The meeting itself reportedly was marked by tensions and disagreements among the primates.
Report on the Episcopal Church’s Response to the Windsor Report
The report of the Anglican Communion subgroup assigned to make evaluate the Episcopal Church’s reaction to the Windsor Report was released early during the Tanzania meeting. The report found the denomination non-compliant regarding same-sex blessings. The church was judged compliant in observing a moratorium on the consecration of bishops in same-sex relationships and in expressing regret that “the bonds of affection [in the Anglican Communion] had been breached.” Some doubts were expressed, however, concerning the church’s sincerity on these points.
While the report itself offered only qualified acceptance of the Episcopal Church’s actions and contained several expressions of doubt concerning the church’s sincerity, it disturbed many orthodox Anglicans. They argued that the subgroup had completed its report too early (evidently several months before the primates’ meeting was held) and either overlooked or ignored many evidences of non-compliance. There was some concern, as well, that not everyone on the subgroup had seen the final report.
At the Tanzania meeting, seven primates took a further step in confronting what they saw as the Episcopal Church’s lack of seriousness: They refused to take the Holy Eucharist with their fellow primates. These primates’ provinces are in either “impaired” or “broken” communion with the Episcopal Church. The primates cited three reasons for not participating in the scheduled Eucharist: the lack of reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and their provinces, obedience to Scripture, and the admonitions of the Book of Common Prayer.
Draft Covenant
A draft covenant for the Anglican Communion was released on February 19. It emphasizes the interdependence of all of the member provinces, asking them always to keep in mind the larger Anglican Communion. When contemplating any action that could negatively impact the larger communion, a province should consult widely with other member provinces. If the provinces cannot agree on the issue in question, the issue should be brought to the primates for guidance.
The covenant generally is seen as critical for the continued unity of the Anglican Communion. The drafters intend for it to restate and prove consonant with standard Anglican faith and practice. The proposed timeline for adopting it is as follows: Provinces will review the draft and submit comments this year. A revised draft then will be presented for discussion at the next Lambeth Conference in the summer of 2008. Further revisions and a final draft will follow sometime afterward.
Primates’ Communiqué
Late on February 19, the primates issued a communiqué at the conclusion of their meeting. Regarding the major issues of strife in the Anglican Communion, they:
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Reasserted that the Episcopal Church has disregarded the Anglican Communion’s teaching on human sexuality, which understands marriage to be a permanent union between one man and one woman and counsels Christians to be abstinent outside of marriage
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Asked the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops to reverse the denomination’s course regarding the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of bishops in same-sex relationships
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Proposed a “pastoral scheme” in which a primatial vicar would be appointed and a pastoral council would be formed to care for those Anglicans in the Episcopal Church who could not accept the oversight of either their bishop or their presiding bishop
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Called for an end to all lawsuits over property issues
The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops was asked to inform the primates of its decisions on the second of these matters by September 30.
The communiqué proved critical of the Episcopal Church. The primates asked the denomination to make an “unequivocal” change in direction and conveyed concern about the “lack of clarity” it had shown to date. They also described the current relationship between the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion as “damaged”—not merely “strain[ed],” as the Episcopal Church had said at its last General Convention.
At the same time, the primates expressed great concern in the communiqué for the health and welfare of the Episcopal Church. “We believe that it would be a tragedy if The Episcopal Church was to fracture, and we are committed to doing what we can to preserve and uphold its life,” they wrote. They also communicated their intent to provide security for orthodox Anglicans within the Episcopal Church during the time when the covenant is being drafted. Such security would be provided by the “pastoral scheme,” which the communiqué presented as a healing balm for the mending of the Episcopal Church’s “broken relationships.”
Following the release of the communiqué, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams strove to keep the Anglican Communion together. In an opinion piece published in the February 23 edition of the British newspaper Telegraph, he argued that “the idea that there might be a worldwide Christian Church that could balance unity and [doctrinal] consent seems worth holding on to, for the sake of the whole Christian family and even for the sake of human society itself.”
The Road from Tanzania
Orthodox Anglican leaders expressed gratitude for the primates’ stand. The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network and bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, declared that “Anglicanism, as represented by the Primates at this meeting, has stood with the faith once delivered.” At the same time, he predicted that many Episcopal bishops would reject the primates’ requests. He encouraged orthodox Anglicans to “persevere” in hope and not lose heart over the unfolding Anglican situation.
On the other end of the spectrum, prominent Episcopal progressives defended the church’s commitment to the “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians. They often accepted the prospect of removal of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion as the price to be paid for that commitment. “Enough is enough.… If the Anglican Communion must separate over this fundamental issue of human rights [i.e., the “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians], then so be it,” insisted Bishop Steven Charleston, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School.
The progressive reactions sometimes also evidenced animosity toward Global South primates. Bishop John Chane of the Diocese of Washington implied that Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola was running the Anglican Communion due to ineffectual leadership by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. “How agonizing … in this holy season of Lent, to see the Archbishop of Canterbury succumb to the Archbishop of Nigeria and call upon us to remain in our sins,” Bishop Chane lamented. (The “sins” to which Chane referred were those involving any compromise on the “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians.)
Very quickly, some progressives began looking for loopholes in the communiqué. They manipulated the primates’ intent by claiming that since the communiqué asked for an end to the “authorization” of same-sex blessings, and since bishops rarely and the larger Episcopal Church never technically “authorized” the blessings, most blessings could continue without impediment. But the primates had noted in their communiqué that they were concerned by any allowance for same-sex blessings at the local level, even in the absence of official authorization. As the orthodox Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Greg Venables, protested, “[the primates] gave much time to producing a [c]ommuniqué which was unambiguous and straightforward”—unlike the claims being made by progressives.
As time passed, Episcopal Church leaders demonstrated increasing hostility toward the primates’ requests and increasing defensiveness regarding their own actions. Neither national church nor Diocese of Virginia officials halted the lawsuits against the Virginia parishes. In early March, the church’s Executive Council passed a 2007 budget that includes $800,000 for legal actions. The House of Bishops later rejected the primates’ “pastoral scheme” at their March meeting.
While the bishops’ responses to the other matters addressed in the communiqué remain pending, it seems unlikely that the Episcopal Church will satisfy the primates by the September 30 deadline. Should that occur, according to the primates, “the relationship between [t]he Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion.”
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