Worlds Apart: The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council and the Anglican Communion Network

on September 18, 2007

Ralph Webb

Note: This is a longer version of an article from the October 2007 Faith and Freedom.

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This summer, two important Anglican meetings illustrated the divergent directions of progressive and orthodox Anglicans in the United States.

First, the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council met in Parsippany, NJ, from June 11-14. The Executive Council is one of the major leadership bodies within the denomination; it meets three times a year to deal with Episcopal Church governance in the three years between General Conventions.

Second, the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) held its annual council meeting in Bedford, TX, from July 30-31. The ACN is, as its name suggests, a network of orthodox Anglicans both inside and outside the Episcopal Church. Since its formation in early 2004, it has been a major voice of orthodox Anglicanism in the United States.
Both meetings were held against the backdrop of a tense time in the Anglican Communion. The primates of Anglican Communion provinces had issued a communiqué that followed their highly-publicized February meeting in Tanzania. In it, the primates had requested the following of the Episcopal Church:

  • That the denomination’s House of Bishops would, by September 30, 2007, assure the primates of the denomination’s reversal of course regarding the blessing of same-sex unions and the consent to the consecration of bishops in same-sex relationships
  • That the Episcopal Church would participate in a “pastoral scheme” designed to provide pastoral relief for orthodox Anglicans in the Episcopal Church and mend the deep divisions between the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion
  • That all parties involved in lawsuits over church property—including the Episcopal Church itself—would end their legal actions immediately
    Against this backdrop, the two meetings proved to be vastly different. In fact, they demonstrated vividly the gap in worldviews between the groups.

Different Tones

Business as Usual
The tones of the two meetings were drastically different. For the Executive Council, it was mostly business as usual—meaning that there were roughly 50 people firmly committed to, and passionate about, left-wing social action. There’s no question that the council members, who are by all accounts considerably more liberal than the denomination’s bishops, really believe that they are serving God faithfully by formulating progressive responses to events of the day. They are as passionate about that as evangelicals are about evangelism. Whether they were discussing the New Sanctuary Movement, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), or the plight of Iraqi refugees, they were probably more actively engaged than delegates at a General Convention.

Sobriety Mixed with Sorrow
At the ACN annual conference, however, the prevailing mood was one of sobriety mixed with sorrow. It started somberly as Bishop Robert Duncan of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Network moderator, recited a list of names of former Episcopal Church clergy who had left the denomination over the past year. Bishop Duncan reminded Network members that all but one of the Network convocation deans were now outside of the Episcopal Church. His comment, “God in his wisdom has not used us to reform the Episcopal Church … instead, the Episcopal Church embraced deformation … rather than reformation,” represented the opinion of many (though not all) orthodox Anglicans. Many Anglicans formerly committed to renewing the Episcopal Church either had closed the doors to that possibility or were ready to relinquish their former fervent hope.

The ACN was mourning the passing of an era and entering a time of tumultuous and unforeseeable change. But the Executive Council (publicly at least) seemed steady-on-course, unmoved by the departures of thousands of orthodox Anglicans from the denomination and the wounded state of the Anglican Communion.

Different Views of Orthodox Anglicans

“Injurious”
In its rejection of the Anglican Communion primates’ “pastoral scheme” for orthodox Anglicans in strained relationships with the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church in relationship to other provinces of the Anglican Communion, the Executive Council agreed with the House of Bishops that “to participate in the scheme would violate our Constitution and Canons.” As the House of Bishops had done, the council pledged to seek pastoral solutions to the problems of the orthodox. Tellingly, however, it, like the House of Bishops three months earlier, provided no recommendations along those lines. Any pastoral response to the needs of orthodox Anglicans remained theoretical. (The Episcopal Church’s Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight [DEPO] plan from 2004 had been designed to address this issue and was reaffirmed at the 2006 General Convention. Nevertheless, DEPO was widely viewed as ineffective in helping orthodox Anglicans. The primates obviously agreed, given their proposal of a pastoral scheme.)

The council also, in resolution NAC023, “Accession of Dioceses to the Episcopal Church,” moved against the Dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, and San Joaquin. Those four dioceses had passed amendments to their constitutions that declared their prior allegiance to the Scriptures and the traditions of the Church in any case where the Episcopal Church might depart from that faith. For example, the Pittsburgh amendment, which took effect in 2004, declared that if the diocese were to “[determine] the Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, or resolutions of its General Convention, to be contrary to the historic Faith and Order of the one holy catholic and apostolic church, the local determination shall prevail.”

At its June meeting, the Executive Council resolution declared these amendments “null and void.” While one council member expressed concern over alienating orthodox dioceses, the prevailing sentiment ran in the opposite direction. The Rev. Gay Jennings of the Diocese of Ohio praised the resolution for emphasizing that “[s]ome dioceses have acted in ways injurious to our common life.” Another council member even proposed that the dioceses in question should not be allowed to send representatives to General Convention. The Rev. Canon Ian Douglas doubted whether it was necessary to name the four dioceses singled out in the resolution. In the end, though, the resolution passed with only minor amendments proposed by its drafter, the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky. Only one council member voted against the resolution.

Beleagured
Instead of viewing orthodox Anglicans as “injurious,” the ACN viewed them as beleaguered Christians. Bishop Duncan chose as one of the theme verses for his opening address, Ezekiel 34:22-23, and made this related observation: “God is judging shepherds, and he is choosing between sheep … His sheep will no longer be prey either to false shepherds or … to fat and pushy sheep or, in the words of our Savior, to wolves.” In Duncan’s view, God was taking the orthodox flock out of the hands of Episcopal Church shepherds who would not faithfully care for them and giving them to new shepherds who would protect them. The ACN moderator told those assembled that the Episcopal Church “has no room” for orthodox Anglicans at all.

Duncan recounted his personal reflections after the March House of Bishops meeting. There, the House rejected the “pastoral scheme” and left almost no hope that it would respond positively to the primates’ other requests. Out of that experience, Duncan “came to the unavoidable conclusion … that the denomination that raised me … no longer had any room for me.” The pain in his voice was palpable.

The concern extended equally to orthodox clergy and lay leaders. At the closing Bible study, Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone (i.e, of South America), encouraged the crowd: “Thank you for your faithfulness. You’ve been under the spotlight, and it’s not been easy.… Thank you for your faithfulness to God in this, and be encouraged: it has not been overlooked.” Venables exhorted the ACN representatives to be honest to themselves about their spiritual condition: “My dear brothers and sisters, you’re under incredible spiritual attack.… It’s God’s battle. Let that comfort your hearts.” The archbishop counseled those in attendance: “Grief somehow has to be dealt with. Don’t go into denial. Don’t be British.” He also urged them to recognize that they were tired and needed rest.

Different Foci

Liberal Social Action
Other than dealing with budgetary issues, the Executive Council paid primary attention to a variety of liberal social action issues. Immigration, racism, abortion, and gay and lesbian rights were just some of the topics touched upon by the council:

  • The Executive Council passed a resolution supporting the New Sanctuary Movement, a movement that aims to give illegal immigrants church-based support. (For more information, see p. 1 of the Summer 2007 Anglican Action Briefing.)
  • John Vanderstar, chair of the National Concerns Committee, urged the council to follow up on the work of the 2006 General Convention’s resolution A123, in which the Episcopal Church apologized for slavery and instructed its Committee on Anti-Racism to study what amends could be made by the denomination.
  • Vanderstar also expressed the church’s commitment to staying in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a pro-abortion organization. In response to controversy, however, he claimed that membership does not mean that the Episcopal Church agrees with everything the RCRC does.
  • Davis Mac-Iyalla, a gay Nigerian who founded and heads the Changing Attitude Nigeria gay rights organization, told a story of persecution. He asked the council to fund his organization and also advocated starting a progressive Anglican church in Nigeria. (The council did not respond positively to either notion.)

Unity
The ACN, in contrast, was concerned with unity as its overarching theme and consequently spent most of its business time discussing documents aimed at bringing orthodox Anglicans together.  The ACN is 1 of 10 partners in the Common Cause Partnership (CCP, also more generally known as “Common Cause”), a network of North American orthodox Anglican bodies. Five church renewal groups are members of Common Cause: the American Anglican Council (AAC), Forward in Faith North America (FIFNA), and three Canadian groups. Two of the recent Anglican mission groups that are composed of congregations that have left the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), are members. Perhaps most significantly, Common Cause includes two church bodies: the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), which formed as a result of evangelicals leaving the Episcopal Church in the 1870s; and the Anglican Province of America (APA), which came from a church body that separated from the Episcopal Church in the late 1960s due to the denomination’s liberal theology and social witness.

Duncan and others in the ACN clearly are animated by the prospect of visible unity among orthodox Anglicans in one church body, commonly envisioned as a single orthodox Anglican province in North America. Indeed, the ACN promoted a new province as its goal during the conference, and the goal of uniting the Common Cause partners into a single province is part of Common Cause’s covenant. But with orthodox Anglican groups proliferating rapidly in reaction to the Episcopal Church’s liberal theology and social witness, Duncan and other supporters apparently realize that such a goal cannot be achieved immediately. The newly-elected Rt. Rev. John Guernsey, an American bishop under the Church of Uganda, perhaps summed it up best: the Common Cause partners currently are moving toward interdependence, but structural unity is still some distance off in the future. In the meantime, cooperation between the groups on a host of lesser matters, including missional efforts, is planned.

Nonetheless, there were differences even among the ACN members that threatened to prevent them from agreeing to ratify two Common Cause documents: the Theological Statement of the Common Cause Partnership and the Articles of the Common Cause Partnership. Potentially contentious issues ranged from the theological [e.g., the importance given to Anglicanism’s Articles of Religion (commonly called the Thirty-nine Articles)] to the social (e.g., remarriage and divorce). The most controversial issue was women’s ordination. Most members of Common Cause do not approve of women’s ordination, but some do, and the members of the ACN itself hold mixed views. This situation led Duncan to remark, “If we’re not able to trust each other … then we may as well all go home.”

In the end, the two documents were ratified, but with some suggested amendments that would be sent to Common Cause for consideration. Regarding women’s ordination, the Rev. Jim Simons of the Diocese of Pittsburgh was instrumental in crafting a resolution recommended for the consideration of Common Cause partners. The resolution proposes adding a new article to the Articles of the Common Cause Partnership. The suggested new article reads, “Members of the CCP recognize that they hold differing views regarding the ordination of women and pledge themselves that they recognize and honor the positions and practices on this issue of others in the CCP.”

Different Views Regarding the Anglican Communion

An Underlying Hostility
While they clearly are highly motivated to pursue progressive causes, Executive Council members could not ignore the need for the Episcopal Church to respond to the Anglican Communion primates. In March, the denomination’s House of Bishops had determinedly rejected the primates’ pastoral scheme and urged the Executive Council to do the same.

At its June meeting, the Executive Council followed the House of Bishops’ advice and asked Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to refrain from participating in the pastoral scheme in any manner. It also argued that the House of Bishops should not respond to the primates’ requests regarding same-sex blessings and consents to the consecration of bishops, maintaining that only the Episcopal Church’s General Convention could do that.

The council’s conclusions on Anglican Communion issues were expressed in a final document entitled “The Episcopal Church’s Commitment to Common Life in the Anglican Communion,” dated June 14. In that document, despite its expression of “most earnest hope” to pursue mission with other Anglican Communion provinces, and its declaration of concern for “our relationships as Anglicans,” the Executive Council essentially made no movement toward the primates. Instead, it chastised the primates for their requests and proclaimed, “We are, whether we wish it or not, God’s gift to each other.”

At the same time, the Executive Council made several statements most likely indicative of future Episcopal Church strategy regarding its relationship with the Anglican Communion:

  • It argued that “the questions before us now are fundamentally relational” rather than political.
  • It emphasized the Episcopal Church’s autonomy in its insistence that “[w]e … can only offer who we are.”
  • It rejected the import of the primates’ communiqué. It instead placed its hopes on a document more favorable to the Episcopal Church, the Report of the Communion Sub-Group of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. That document effectively had been replaced by the primates’ communiqué.
    Perhaps most tellingly, the one representative from the larger Anglican Communion who was present at the meeting was Bishop Michael Ingham, Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster (Canada) and an ardent supporter of same-sex blessings. Ingham was the most recent observer from the Anglican Church of Canada to Executive Council meetings, and this was to be his last meeting before a new observer was elected. He praised the council for its “honesty and integrity” in its revisionist stances regarding gay and lesbian issues. He also compared the controversy in the Anglican Communion over same-sex issues to earlier theological struggles: “I’m struck by the similarity between when the Church was working out its understanding of the Trinity and the Church today working out its understanding of sexuality and Anglican identity.”

A Reform Movement
If the prevailing modus operandi at the Executive Council was to stay on course regarding what is commonly called the “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians (a code phrase for both same-sex blessings and ordinations of practicing homosexual persons at all levels in the Episcopal Church), the ACN bishops were embarked on a new course. They saw their Network on one level as a reform movement that will have impact far beyond Anglicanism. Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Diocese of Quincy set the Network in historical context by comparing it loosely to Franciscan and Dominican reform movements earlier in church history. Looking at trends in the larger Christian Church today, Ackerman concluded that there is a “new orthodoxy” across denominations that will reform the entire Church, not just the Anglican Communion.

To Duncan, reform within Anglicanism will likely occur only through establishing new Anglican structures, not relying on the old ones. Regarding the September House of Bishops meeting at which the bishops will meet with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams before they respond to the primates, Duncan said, “We don’t see any likelihood that the Episcopal Church will turn around … we see such a hardness of heart that we wonder whether God is not hardening hearts so that his glory can be shown.”

And reform, from the Network’s position, means unity among orthodox Anglicans-practical unity in smaller matters now, and unity in one church body later. “We do have the charism for unity among our partners, and we … with God’s great help and protection, fulfilled that yet again in supporting the Common Cause partnership,” Duncan concluded at the end of the council. One symbol of that unity was the presence of representatives of five different Common Cause partners at the council meeting, including members of two church bodies that had left the Episcopal Church decades earlier.

And so Duncan affirmed, “The purpose [of the Network] is certainly to be the Church.” As he had spoken pastorally at the beginning of the council, so the moderator did at the end: “We are in the midst of a Good Friday … but I’d say the evidence of this council is that Easter’s approaching.”

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