Priestly Ruminations

So, maybe not entirely clear on this - and I’ll openly admit to that - but this is what I’ve taken from how it was explained to me. There have been lots of people who have been wondering what the deal is with ‘discipline’ in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC). The Lambeth Conference calls for moratoria on various things, and these cries for moratoria are (apparently) ignored in various sectors of the Canadian Church. What do we make of this? Previously, the Canadian House of Bishops had asked one BC diocese to hold off on certain actions which it then went ahead with; the Primates (head Archbishops) of the whole worldwide church asked the same, but that same diocese continued in its actions. Since then the General Synod of the ACoC has refused to affirm the authority of individual dioceses to move on certain actions that a handful more dioceses have moved ahead on anyways. Most recently, the bishops of the dioceses held in the ecclesiastical province of Rupert’s Land (one of the four ecclesiastical provinces in the ACoC) issued a joint statement that they would uphold moratoria - and then one of those dioceses has (reportedly) gone ahead and given its approval to actions withheld by those moratoria if the General Synod gives its approval. The question is rightly asked, then, what about the authority of church councils? what about church discipline?

So I don’t know what the deal is with discipline. I do know this, though. Apparently, the ACoC is constituted in such a way that the buck stops with each diocesan synod. Provincial Synods, and even the General Synod, do not have authority over individual dioceses. Further to that, there is no mechanism for disciplining between dioceses - there is no authority, within the ACoC, that stands over and above that authority held by the individual bishop and diocese (whichever ones these may be) in question. In effect, this means various things. It means that General Synod has no authority except for whatever authority individual dioceses might extend to it (as far as its resolutions, etc. go). It means that the House of Bishops can make various statements, but that they are not binding upon any of its members - just expressions of sentiment.

So - don’t look to the House of Bishops to enforce anything, and don’t expect its statements to have weight throughout the ACoC. Rather, look to it for clear statements of where its members are - its member bishops, and the dioceses that they represent. Don’t look to the General Synod to solve current strains within the ACoC - that’s not what it’s for. Look to General Synod to say where the majority of the dioceses represented are standing - even if it means that your own diocese stands somewhere else (General Synod resolutions are apparently not binding on a diocese unless it chooses to make them so). Perhaps this begs the question of why we have a General Synod, and why all of the ACoC bishops meet together for House of Bishops meetings. Wouldn’t it be just as productive (if not more so) to allow the individual ecclesiastical provinces to carry the responsibilities of the General Synod, and to have House of Bishops meetings from across provinces, rather than the nation? The provinces are, themselves, generally more homogeneous than the nation is (as a whole), so wouldn’t these kinds of House of Bishops meetings be able to cover more ground? Well - these aren’t just my questions, they’ve been asked elsewhere by others, and asked more eloquently by others.

My contribution is this, perhaps (which may not be much of a contribution): it would seem that back in the day (and I’ll freely admit that, like so many, I am likely idealizing the past), when the bishops in Canada were appointed by the King/Queen of England, such mechanisms of church discipline did exist. If the monarch makes the bishop, then the monarch can also un-make the bishop. That said, such was not written into the code for the ACoC when it was constituted - I doubt this was an intentional ommission, but more likely an oversight - due to various factors that I’ll get to in a second. What I will say beyond that is that where the diocese is autonomously authoritative over its own affairs (again, as it’s been explained to me), it also falls to the diocese to handle discipline. I believe that even within my short lifetime there is an example (one) of a Canadian bishop being disciplined by the diocese that was served.

That said, the people who are looking for disciplinary action to come from without are mistaken, it seems. They should be looking from within, if it is necessary. To my mind, it shouldn’t be (though it may be at times) - because no matter what depths people may think that any church body may have fallen to, it still seems that Jesus is Lord of His Church, and its constituent members. He does not abandon them, though they may abandon Him. He may turn them over to suffer the consequences of their actions from time to time - but this “turning over” is, arguably, a greater show of His sovereignty over them than His constant presence.

Instead, I think that discipline from the top-down was not included in the ACoC because it was not thought to be needed. Again, humour me as I idealize the past, but in the past bishops were acutely aware of the interaction of Christ’s body with itself - and the conciliar nature of the Anglican episcopate was stressed in a big way. As dioceses and bishops have stressed (more and more) their independence of one another, and as they have felt (more and more) free to pursue Christian faith as they (individually) had received it - as opposed to ‘as the Church universal’ has received it (that more holistic approach) - the conciliar nature of the episcopal office has been down-played to some degree. There may have been a time when bishops sought each other’s council so that they would not be engaging in anything that might drive a wedge between them and their fellow bishops; now, however, seems to be the day when bishops seek council from one another to ensure that the wedge that they’re driving inbetween hasn’t completely separated them (yet).

That’s sort of my view of it - words are so inadequate to express my thoughts on such a large subject - and particularly on the episcopate (of which I will, God willing, never be a part). So that’s the best that I can express, with my limited vocabulary and limiting language - take it as it is.

Yesterday morning I was able to attend a clergy meeting with the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. He had some interesting things to say - and some interesting things to not say (by which I mean that the things that he chose not to comment on were interesting, also - and I suppose that I’d hoped he would comment more on some of these). I do not know where all of this is going, but I fear that there are some troubled times ahead, and suspect that there are some who are growing more desperate as time advances - as they feel more and more that their voices are not being understood. I suppose that this misunderstanding probably goes both ways - though if I could understand that I don’t understand something, then I would be on the road to understanding it, wouldn’t I? At any rate, I’m not one of those that I fear will do something desperate, and so I wait and pray for this church.

It seems to me that Anglican people pride themselves on the diversity of their church. I’m not going to say anything bad about that - I think that a diverse church is a good thing, and that it should hopefully keep itself in check because of that diversity, to some degree. Well… it should… When many people talk about the diversity of the Anglican Church, these days, it also seems that they have the idea of via media in mind - and I’m just not sure that this is an apt application.

Consider that via media, the middle way of Anglicanism, is perhaps not most accurately applied (historically) to theology. I mean, yes - Anglicanism did a nice blend of Lutheran and Calvinist reformed theologies - but that’s not what the term was referencing. The middle way of the Anglican Church, it seems to me (and I could be wrong), was in reference to the English reformation’s ‘not throwing out the baby with the bathwater’ - or, to its preservation of many Roman Catholic influences - including liturgical practice and church governance (among others). Theologically speaking, however, the Anglican Church was never a middle way. There were certain theologies that the Anglican institution embraced, and others that it rejected, from the very start (I’ve written more about this elsewhere in this blog, in an article on Anglican Unity). Suffice it to say that individually-oriented theologies (such as the puritans held, or later, the methodists) were difficult for the Anglican Church to reconcile itself with - due in large part to its emphasis (over-emphasis?) on the community of faith.

But if via media is meant to be recognized as a middle way between Roman Catholicism (on the one hand) and Protestantism (on the other), then where does this idea of it referring to tolerant embrace of all theological views rise from? I suggest that this idea is generated rather recently in history, out of the wishful-thinking of those who support it. Because of this institutional church’s close connection with secular society (and I’m not knocking that, right now), when the society moved to be tolerant of all, whatever their race or creed (as, I suppose, secular society is wont to do, hit with the mutli-cultural influences that it is faced with in current globalization), various Anglicans moved to say, “Ahh, we have always embraced all points of view - via media, you know!”

I don’t doubt that this was done out of good intentions - though the fact that it is flagrant misrepresentation of historic Anglicanism, which has not ‘always embraced all points of view,’ does cause some difficulties. When we look at the theologies that have been rejected by the Anglican institution, in the past, we might say, “Well, the puritans were hyper-religious fundamentalists. Such belief shouldn’t have a place anywhere, let alone our church.” or, “Those Wesleyans were romanticizing rabble rousers - appealing to man’s basest instincts.” But however we might try to degrade these people’s beliefs (and it has happened, much to the shame of many who bear the mantle ‘Anglican’ - the current writer included), it shows that we have not ‘always embraced all points of view.’

Now, this false interpretation of what via media means may have started off rather simply. It’s meaning may have been ‘we want to welcome all Christians into our fold.’ I don’t know that it did, but it may have. This has eventually morphed, however, into an all-embracing ‘we want to welcome all religions into our fold.’ With total disregard for what other religions actually believe, and typical Northwestern arrogance, Anglicans tell Hindus that their religion is another path to the god that the Christians believe in (which god just happens to be God) - when Hindus themselves would never claim such a goal as being a part of the practice of their religion. It is in the face of this attitude that, it seems to me, we get the rise of the ‘unity in diversity’ mantra. If we, as Anglicans, are all-embracing of other religions, then why wouldn’t we be all-embracing of all theologies that are thinly cloaked in Christian terminology? Why couldn’t there be ‘unity in diversity’?

All of this is to lead to this next point: historically, when the Anglican Church has been called a diverse church, it has not been in reference to its theology. I have already shown that the idea of via media that people use to support this view is a faulted view, but this is unnecessary. The diversity of Anglicanism was not its theological practice, but its catholicity. Anglican practice - some form of its governance, theology, and liturgy - can be found all over the globe (and not just at the residences of British Ambassadors to different countries). The Anglican Church is a catholic denomination. The diversity of Anglicanism is its ability to adapt to all cultures, but to still be recognizably Anglican. The try to use “Anglicanisms historic record of diversity” for anything beyond this is a misapplication - and while I have known this for quite some time, it was recently hit home to me in a new way, which is why I write about it now.

Recently there was a Lambeth Conference held, and many bishops came away from it marvelling at the diversity of the Anglican Church. When these bishops spoke of the Lambeth Conference, they did not speak of the diversity of Anglican theology (which is fairly uniform straight across the board, except for the Northwestern contingents of it, which represent a very small portion of Anglicans), but of the diversity of languages and cultures that were represented there. Some others, however, spoke of the diversity of the Lambeth Conference, which had given them hope around the idea of ‘unity in diversity’ with regards to theology. I think that if these ones would wake up, they would realize that diversity due to catholicity cannot be equated to theological diversity - the two are not the same thing. Where the ‘unity in diversity’ of the institution ends is where the very theological diversity that they would promote begins. As I’ve written elsewhere on this blog, there cannot be theological unity in diversity - but only theological diversity in unity. Re-writing the interpretive meanings of some of the greatest achievements of the Anglican Church does not make them so - and will not succeed in promotion of any thing. Nothing can be built on falsities such as these.

This is my rant - take it as you will.

Read Matthew 22:34-40, or just follow my summary below:

Jesus was approached by some Pharisees and a lawyer stepped out of the group of them. He asked Jesus: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And even as this question fell from his lips, Jesus was answering it - for He knew the answer. He said, “You will love your Lord God with the whole of your heart, and with the whole of your soul, and with the whole of your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment - but a second is like it - you will love your neighbour as yourself. In these two commandments hang the whole law and prophets.”

The question that I want to look at today is this: what does it mean for the whole Law and prophets to be hung in these two commandments to love God and neighbour? There are different ways of approaching understanding this relationship. In one sense, and a popular one at that, we see these two greatest commandments as being Jesus’ summary of the Law - this is not the only way of viewing the relationship between the Law and prophets and these two commandments, but it is the way we’re exploring just now. In effect, in this view, everything contained in the 613 rules and commands of the Pentateuch boils down to loving God and your neighbour. Now, there are a couple of fallacies that this view can lead to, but there is also a faithful way of running with this approach - and I will try to elucidate each.

On the one hand, this kind of thinking could lead someone to say that ’since all of those Old Testament rules and regulations come down to these two commandments, I don’t need to look at those statutes - I just need to act in love at all times.’ This is dangerous thinking, to some extent, because the statement that ‘All of A is B’ (or, in our case, ‘All of the 613 are contained in the 2,’ or, more bluntly, ‘All of the Law is Love’) does not lead to the conclusion that ‘All B is A.’ In other words, it is a specific kind of love that Jesus is referring to (the kind of love for God and neighbour that encompasses the whole Old Testament Law and Prophets). Thus, there are potentially other kinds of love which are not being referred to here. Jesus is specifically referring to the kind of love that is characterized by the content of the 613 statutes in the Pentateuch. In this case, the content of these statutes cannot be ignored simply because we know that ‘All of A is B,’ because it is all too possible that ‘Some B is not A,’ and we cannot allow ourselves to let the things that characterize another part of B to be confused with A. I hope that makes sense. If not, here’s a little more…

I’ve said elsewhere on this blog that there are many kinds of love. People love their parents, their children, their siblings, their spouses, their friends, their god (who may actually be God), and good food. All of these are loved by them in different ways - and ‘love,’ as a term, actually means something slightly different in each context. In each of these contexts, the actions that characterize a person’s love for the beloved are different. It is no good for me to approach my wife as I would approach a hot dog (she complains about tooth marks too much). It is no good for me to approach God as I would approach my child (for I am His, not He mine). If Jesus’ two great commandments are the summary of the Law (613 statutes), then His commandments to love are specifically referring to that kind of love that can be expanded upon, or defined denotatively, by the content of the 613 statutes of the Law. There may be more that could be said about this kind of love (though that is a different blog entry all together), but nothing can be said about it if not these 613 things. This is why they are valuable to read and to learn, even though one has the summary.

The second fallacy might be to temper one’s views of God’s Word, revealed in Scripture (specifically, the Pentateuch, though Jesus doesn’t just mention the Law, but also the Prophets), according to one’s preconceived notions of what love is. In this case, the summary of the Law (love God, love your neighbour) is taken as the whole of the Law, and the love it refers to is taken to be whatever notion of ‘love’ the reader might apply. In this case, I am a 21st century person, and I have some very ‘civilized’ conceptions of love, and these are what kind of love Jesus was speaking about. With this view, then, when one reads the 613 statutes of the Pentateuch, they feel empowered to discard whatever is contained there that does not ‘jive’ with their view of what it is to act out of love towards God and neighbours. In this case, we wouldn’t say that the whole of the Law hangs on these two commandments, but that it hangs by a thread from these two commandments, and that that thread is easily cut by those who believe they know better.

The problem with this kind of thinking is difficult, because I, too, am a 21st century person, and I, too, suffer from post-modern thinking. I can openly admit that it is impossible to read a text and do pure exegesis - we always eisegete a little (the difference being that the first refers to what we pull out of the text, and the second refers to what we read into it). That said, Philosophy of Language has struggled for a long time with the question of who gives words their meaning - the one who says them, or the one who hears/reads/interprets them? My brief analysis is that we are obviously unable to understand their meaning as other than how we hear/read/interpret; however, to say that Jesus said something that I’ve only interpreted Him as saying is to misquote Him. We must always struggle to understand what a person has meant by what they have said, rather than to simply infer what they meant by it. A summary of understanding language, then, is this: do your best to understand what the person meant, take from that what you will.

That said, philosophy can also show us that we need to be terribly suspect of anything that we ourselves think. We are all-too-aware of our own shortcomings; our perception can be thrown off by any number of things: sleep habits, eating habits, alcohol, really any kind of chemical intake (though, particularly toxic). How am I to know that I’m not under the influence of such an element right now? Would I know it if I was? How, then, can I trust that what I think Jesus meant by ‘love’ is probably really what He meant? I mean, I might be drunk, sleep deprived, and half-starved! Particularly when we are dealing with a collection of books (the Bible) that instructs us that we are corrupt from what we are intended to be, how can we possibly think that we’re qualified to decide, for ourselves, what Jesus meant by ‘love’?

Indeed, unless I first reject that notion - I am not corrupt! - then I cannot proceed along this kind of thinking, and to do so I must reject a good many other precepts of the Bible. The question, then, is - am I following God, or am I making God as I wish He was?

In the end, the way to approach the Law and Prophets, in light of what Jesus has said about the two greatest commandments, is to ‘unlearn what [we] have learned,’ with regards to love. We must learn afresh, discover anew, what it is to love - to love God with all our of being, to love our neighbours as ourselves. When we approach the books of the Law and the books of the Prophets, the faithful Christian response to their contents is to allow them to form our understanding of what love is. As I said above, love may be a good many things - but it is not the love that Jesus was referring to unless it can be qualified by the Law and the Prophets.

So there are lots of places in Scripture where the end of the age is described in the terms of a wedding: Christ Himself being the bridegroom, and the Church Catholic being the bride. Along with this is the imagery in Scripture of the great day of the Messianic feast, and even the Kingdom of God is likened to a wedding feast. For anyone who reads these things, the impression that God is interested in parties and having fun is inescapable - that He desires this for His people is a simple progression from these examples. Yet, for anyone who looks at the Church (the community of God’s people), there’s that nagging impression that this is often not the case. If being God’s people means celebration - and excitement - then why is people’s impression of Christians often that they’re dull people who are generally depressed and depressing? If God’s Kingdom, of which all Christians are members, is a party - why don’t Christians usually seem like party people? Read Matthew 22:1-14.

I was privileged to attend NSLC (Inter-Varsity’s National Student Leaders’ Conference) over the turn of the year from 2000-2001. At this event, we were challenged to consider that God’s Kingdom was a party, and to imagine what Christian community - what Church - could be, and should be, in light of that. The slogan line for the conference was “You only wish…” The Rev. Dr. Michael Pountney, former principal of Wycliffe College in Toronto, was the guest-speaker, and it was a truly blessed time with the other participants and with the Lord. That question has stuck with me - how can we be the Church in the celebratory manner that we’re supposed to be? Moreover, how can we present the Church to the world as being ‘a party’? Further to that, how can we do this without losing that sense of awe at God’s majestic presence, as He comes to meet us - enthroned upon our praises?

I have a few ideas (I wouldn’t be writing if I didn’t), but thought I’d throw this out there before I said too much. Anyone else have any ideas? Write a comment.

Language use has certainly gone down the tubes, hasn’t it? Well, seemingly for the majority of people - and for a growing number of people. You may be looking at the number of asterisks in the title to this article, and wondering: What word is that supposed to be? Well, wonder no longer! The word is “smurfed.” Cindy and I were talking the other day, and we wondered at the connection between people having small vocabularies (where they have to use various cuss words to fill in their lack appropriate English words that would express their ideas more fully), and the watching of Smurfs.

Now, hear me out! I was honestly playing with Adriana one day, and Smurfs was on tv in the background, and I heard Papa Smurf utter a line that went something like this: “Come on you smurfs - let’s smurf that ogre so we can smurf some smurfin’ good smurf-alicious smurfiness.” Ok, it wasn’t quite that, but it was something along those lines. Seriously - these little blue guys don’t know how to speak English (in the sense of having mastery of a very limited number of verbs, among other things), and they just fill-in what they don’t know with “smurf.” Let’s smurf that smurf! It’s your birthday? Let me smurf you a present. Smurfette, come here and help me smurf this. Brainy, you’re the worst at smurfing these. Hefty, why can’t you smurf a little more gently? It’s insane!!

Well, I think that viewing the Smurfs has added to the degradation of the English language. Just a thought.

So it seems like all I’ve posted for months has been regarding the Anglican fracture… but that’s not the only thing that goes through my head, and I figured it was worth saying something about the other stuff that’s going on in my life…

I’ve been taking this Master of Sacred Theology degree through Emmanuel and St. Chad, in Saskatoon, for the past while - and I’m almost halfway through it. I’m taking it in the non-thesis writing fashion, so I need to take 8 courses overall. I currently have coursework to finish up for two of the four courses that I’ve taken (lol), so I’m almost halfway through it (though really, only a quarter of the way). I was told that if I’m not bad with French, I might be able to switch it up and write a thesis in lieu of two of those eight courses, so I might opt for that (depending on how ‘bad’ I am with French, that is - but this is helped in that much theological jargon is in Greek and Latin anyways (not the vernacular languages), and so doesn’t change from English to French… so all I need to know is the regular French that comes between the theological terms). At any rate, I am enjoying these studies - though it’s going to be difficult to find courses to fill-out the degree now that I live in Calgary (thus, the possibility of switching to the thesis-track).

Further to that, Cindy and I have been living it up, at home! Adriana just celebrated her first birthday party, and we had a number of young couples and babies from church over for that party (Adriana’s the oldest of them by close to six months, I think). My parents are visiting from Thunder Bay, and so they were able to enjoy the party too - and Cindy has posted some pictures on her Facebook. We’ve been seeing lots of family, for that reason (as we always do when there’s family visiting town), and it always makes me wonder… why don’t we do more with Michael and Janna regularly? I mean, we went for lunch with them on Sunday, but we don’t usually do that - it almost seemed like we only had lunch with them on Sunday because Mark and Beth had come down from Olds, so we all went together. We used to have those Sunday lunches at our house that they were all welcome to, but we haven’t gotten back in the habit of doing that since my vacation - it seems so much more convenient to go out for lunch on Sunday (particularly with people from church who we haven’t gotten to meet, yet). We’re down to one car just now, due to an accident in the garage - though the insurance will be having the car taken to a garage to be fixed on the 26th. In the meantime, we’re down to just the Hyundai Accent (2-door), which is pretty small for having a baby seat in the back! I’ve always found it a little cramped, so just a little moreso now. That said, getting the Corolla fixed ($500 deductible) is kind of scary for us right now, too, because we’re in the hole a little for recent dental bills that we’re not sure my medical plan is going to cover (if we understand the plan right, it’s potentially the worst medical plan in existence - or at least, for a growing family!).

All of that said, my six-month solo work at Holy Trinity, Calgary, has come to a close, and Pastor Stephen has returned to work after his sabbatical! It’s just been the first week, now, but it looks like some really exciting things will come out of our ministry partnership. He’s going to have extra time freed up now, to put his efforts into specific ministry endeavours that he is particularly interested in, and so will I. It might be a preliminary statement to make, but it looks like he might be interested in developing our adult discipleship ministry (note: Jim Packer recently made a good argument that the most needed thing in the Christian Church is adult catechesis (which is making people into disciples of Jesus, who understand their faith and live with integrity to it, to sum it up)), and I’m going to be freed up to help develop our youth ministry! I’m pretty excited about that, and Cindy seems to be interested in helping (she really missed the youth work we did in Unity after she stopped because of Adriana). So there are some really exciting things on the horizon for Holy Trinity, I think, and I praise God that He’s put me here, to be a part of it!

Further to my work at the church is my work with the diocese. I was unable to help out with the summer camps, this year, just because of when they were - though I do hope to be involved next year (and in years after that). TEC, however, is coming up soon, and I’ve been mustering all the support for it that I can. I think there are close to a half-dozen from Holy Trinity, that are interested in going; I think there are 4 or so from Unity who should come down (whether they will or not is another matter - but they “should” come!); I think there are over a dozen from the ELCIC congregations in just the north end of Calgary that are being encouraged to attend, as well. So, all in all, it should be a good weekend. There’s a TEC meeting this evening, so I should know more about it shortly!

I think this is what’s going on in my life. Hobby-wise, I’m still playing Dransik (and if you’re not, you should be!); I’ve been working on the development of a Lego table, though this has been put on hold as my Lego room is actually the spare room, and my parents are staying in it right now; haven’t had much time for XBox for a long time; was going to learn C++ programming (teach myself off online tutorials), but decided against it for now; have been considering taking up piano again, though I seem to have too many hobbies right now already (for the time I have).

What was it about the Pharisees that was so problematic? Well, among other things, they ‘taught the rules of man as though they were the statutes of God.’ This is one of the major charges brought up against the group, by Jesus. Yet, they were founded with such good intentions - founded to preserve the cultural distinctiveness of the Jewish people against the strongly hellenizing forces of the world around them; they were founded to preserve the righteousness of God at a time of increased secularization. Somehow over time, however, they had allowed their own teachings to reach the same status as God’s commands, in what they were upholding among the people - and this showed what kind of a group they really were…

In Matthew 15, there is a brief episode described, where the Pharisees are concerned with the purity or profanity of eating food with or without washing one’s hands first. Jesus brings the above charge against them. In fact, He charges them (in that) of being another kind of plant, than those planted by His Father. Wow! That’s a devastating charge to level against any group or organization, and should never be made lightly. Jesus says, “All plants which My Heavenly Father planted not, He will uproot.” And our minds are drawn to His parable of the weeds in the field, which were sown by the enemy as the farmer slept (after he had sown his good seed). Jesus is, in effect, saying that the Pharisees, as an institution in ancient Israel, were sown by the Father’s enemy. No, it couldn’t be told at first - before they had mixed their own instructions into the body of laws that they enforced. But once the real fruit of the Pharisaical enterprise was made evident, then it became clear that from the start they had not been on the right track.

The Pharisees, then, were not the true children of Judaism (Jesus is saying). They are, in this blog’s terms, the cuckoo bird’s children. They had usurped power and authority in that nation, power and authority that were not rightly theirs - and they had taken all the nourishment intended for the true children for themselves.

Again… who would you say are the true children of Anglicanism? There seem to be two facets of Anglicanism that are called upon, by different groups in the church - the one claims the institutional relationship to Anglicanism, while the other claims the faith relationship to Anglicanism (in broad terms, that is) - or, at least, they each tend to claim that the other is not within the bounds of the institutional inheritance of Anglicanism, or the bounds of the faith inheritance of Anglicanism (which charges seem to carry with them the import of the group making them considering itself to be within those bounds that the other has fallen outside of).

Now, I have reason to believe that the ‘children of Anglicanism’ who claim that the others are outside of the bounds of Anglican faith (really, they claim those to be outside the bounds of Christian faith) are true children of Anglicanism. Historically, there have been multiple occasions when Anglicans who shared the same kind of faith as these ones migrated from the Anglican Church. I am thinking, particularly (though not exclusively), of the Methodist movement. Yet, in spite of the times when people of this kind of faith have been forced out, or have intentionally moved themselves out, of the Anglican Church, there are still people of this faith persuasion present in the church - which leads me to conclude that the Anglican Church breeds this kind of faith in its members. Thus, these are true children of Anglicanism.

Does that also lead me to believe that the other, the institutional children of Anglicanism, are illegitimate children? No. The difficulty lies in this: the Anglican Church has always tried to balance a Roman Catholic mode of structure and worship with a protestant reformed theology. Somehow, both the clearly protestant evangelical faith (’evangelical’ being equivalent to ‘reformed’ in this case, and being the preferred term, by the reformers themselves) and the episcopal institutional lay-out are Anglican, and Anglican cannot be Anglican without either. So, the fact that I see those concerned with doctrinal correctness and Scripture (primarily) as true children of Anglicanism does not lead me to think the others as illegitimate children of her.

That said, Jesus doesn’t look at these kinds of things in levelling His charge against the Pharisees. Consider the parable of the weeds in the field - they were known to the servants of the master by the fruit they were bringing forth. Jesus didn’t look at the founding of the Pharisees (which seems to have been done with the best of intentions, and to really have grown out of the Judaist expression of its day quite legitimately), but at the fruit they were bringing forth, which was incompatible with either their own founding intentions, and with God’s intentions for the people who were known by His Name.

So, what do we make of this? Insomuch as those ‘institutional’ children of Anglicanism are bringing forth fruit that is not in keeping with repentance of sin (one of Jesus’ charges to His would-be followers), and that is not in keeping with God’s intentions for His people, they are illegitimate children - they are cuckoos - they are ‘plants which My Heavenly Father planted not,’ and they will be uprooted. At the same time, however, the same falls to the other group, the ‘faith’ children of Anglicanism. Insomuch as these are bringing forth the fruit of religiosity and legalism, fruit that is not in keeping with God’s intentions for His people, they are illegitimate children - they are the cuckoos. The fate of the plants not planted by the Father is that He will uproot them.

There is more to be said on this, I suppose, but I won’t say it now, as I need to think on it some more (as I probably needed to on what I’ve already written). But consider that Jesus’ instructions to His followers, regarding the Pharisees, is to “Leave them!” What does it really mean to leave them? For instance, if groups in our church are really convinced of the ‘wrong-ness’ of the other group (whichever group that might mean), are they charged by Jesus to “Leave them!” And what does it mean to truly “Leave them!” if both could be understood as legitimate (in some way) children of Anglicanism? Does it mean leaving and finding a way to still be a part of Anglicanism (as some have done?), or is that a mistake in itself?

Well, enough rambling - probably only half of what I’ve written makes sense to anyone beyond myself, and probably less than half of that has any real element of truth in it. My understanding of church history, etc. is limited, afterall.

I recently heard someone say that they felt that Rowan Williams, current Archbishop of Canterbury, was perhaps the finest Anglican scholar in the world, and certainly the finest scholar to be Archbishop of Canterbury since Anselm. Now, I’m not here to argue that point - I’m most certainly below +++Rowan in the church hierarchy, and I do know my place (so I would not argue against it, even if I felt I could), but there are just so many Anglican scholars that I’m unfamiliar with, who I would have to judge inferior to him if I were intent on agreeing with the statement. Thus, I have no real opinion on the statement itself - it could be true, it could be false - I wouldn’t know either way.

That said, this person’s stated reason for believing +++Rowan to be in such a position was that, moreso than any other with which he was familiar, the Archbishop has put real energy and effort into understanding both sides of the current Anglican debate, and to meet both sides where they are at. Now, I’m not going to argue this point, either. I have certainly seen +++Rowan making this effort and so I will not deny that he has; yet, there are also so many others who may be making a similar effort, and I would not desire to short-change their efforts by ranking who had reached the greatest success in this endeavour. Probably, however, the good Archbishop is the highest profile individual to making an honest effort in this, and for this very reason I quoted him in my paper on Anglican Unity, which I wrote over a year ago.

All of that said, this person then continued by stating that he felt that +++Rowan was doing an excellent job in the face of the current Anglican situation, which he characterized as being ‘one group of people who are acting deplorably, and another group of people who are doing less than they could.’ Now, here’s what strikes me as odd about all of this…

If you were to commend someone for having a certain attitude towards something, wouldn’t you, too, strive to hold that commendable attitude? Wouldn’t that lead a person to characterize the situation as, at least: ‘two groups of people who are acting deplorably, and two groups of people who are doing less than they could’? Wouldn’t that be the conclusion of a balanced view that understood both sides of the debate?

Well, that’s what I think, anyways… but as I’ve said before - who am I?

Anglican ‘crisis’ - or is it better called ‘debate,’ or ’struggle’? - has spawned lots of boating stories. The Anglican Church of Canada has been likened to an ocean liner (often along the lines of the Titanic, which a person is best to abandon on a lifeboat rather than sink with). The Anglican Church of Canada is painted as a sinking ship by the Canonic (both Charismatic and Empiric Canonics), and the route to take is the one that leads to lifeboats (presumably, these lifeboats will all eventually raft together and sail on as one). The iceberg that this ocean liner has hit is, above the water, the blessing and acceptance of homosexual activity in the church - neither requiring nor asking repentance from this behaviour, and even calling it holy. Under the water, however, this dire iceberg is much larger (as icebergs are), and Church doctrine, human nature, sin, and salvation (among others). What do you do when you find yourself on a ship that’s sinking? Presumably, abandon ship.

So, here’s another thought - because there was a point where Jesus was out on the lake with His disciples, and they were in a boat, and there was a storm (not an iceberg) that was sinking their ship - and they didn’t abandon ship (Matthew 8:23-27). They approached Jesus, who was sleeping in the boat at the time, and they woke Him, and they cried out to Him for help, and He calmed the winds and waves. His cutting words to them, at this episode: “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (TNIV). The response of the disciples, in the face of their boat sinking, is to cry out to Jesus for help. Is this a good response? It certainly gets the results that they’re seeking - and note that Jesus doesn’t upbraid them for asking Him to save them, but for being so afraid. The way they deal with the situation is only ‘wrong’ insomuch as they fear it - giving in to fear, in this case, seems to mean not trusting that it can be dealt with by the Lord.

The difference between this story and the current Anglican situation is this, in the minds of those Canonics mentioned previously: They have cried out to Jesus, and to no avail - which gives the definite impression, to them, that He isn’t in the boat in the first place. They can’t wake Him to their sinking crisis, because He isn’t present with that ship. It is from this context that they feel they must abandon ship - and if Christ isn’t on the ship, as they believe, then there really is no reason to stay.

Yet, there is another situation where the disciples are faced with a storm - where the wind and waves are against them and they are faced with the possibility of sinking - and where Jesus is not in the boat with them - and this should, maybe, provide some kind of framework to work from, if the situation is what these Canonics believe it is. This is found in Matthew 14:22-33. This time, the disciples do not cry out to Jesus as they struggle. Rather, they endure as best they can - and when Jesus does appear on the scene they do cry out: not for Him to save them, but because they’re afraid of Him as they mistaken Him for a ghost (as He walks atop the water). Peter ends up stepping out of the boat, to go to Him on the water, and when he gets close he begins to sink as he notices the storm that rages about him. Jesus saves His friend, and returns to the boat with him. As He steps into the boat, from the sea, the wind dies and the water is calm - and the disciples recognize, in this, that He is the Son of God (which title they don’t yet fully understand the meaning of).

Now, there’s a strong tradition for understanding this narrative unit in other terms than just a boat and a storm. The Church Fathers saw, in this story, the Church herself - cast on the waves of temptation and trial, enduring the onslaught as she waited for her Saviour to return. In that spirit, what would it mean to apply this picture to the Anglican Church of today, and specifically to this province of it? If it is true, that the Anglican Church of Canada is a sinking ship - battered by the contrary winds and waves of secular society and popular opinion, slowly filling up with the water of heresy - then what would this story have to teach us about faithful response?

I don’t think that this story suggests that the proper response is to get out of the boat, in a new boat. The problem with new boats is that they tend to have a similar shape to the old boat - that is, institutions all tend to be very ‘institutional,’ and that may be one of those cases where if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a… loonie? It seems, infact, that building new boats could even be an unfaithful response, in the sense of ‘we’ll need something to keep us afloat on this turbulent sea!’ Rather, Peter was faithful as he stepped out onto the water; no boat; no hope for keeping above water; only Jesus before his eyes. As the Audio Adrenaline song observed, “If I keep my eyes on Jesus, I can walk on water.” In fact, it was when Peter looked at all of the elements that had been working against the boat that he was deemed unfaithful by the Lord, and he began to sink in the water. What might that say about people hopping into lifeboats, and shouting back at everyone else still on the ship?

Perhaps the lesson, then, is this: the only hope for this boat, the Anglican Church of Canada, if it is (indeed) in as dire straits as it has been charged to be (by many others), is for the faithful to get out of the boat - not into a new or separate boat, but to walk out on the sea, keeping Jesus ever before them, and for Him to bring them back to the boat Himself. It is as Jesus stepped onto the boat that the winds and waves ceased; it is as Jesus stepped onto the boat that the other disciples - none of whom had had the faith to step out onto the sea as Peter did - recognized Him as God’s Son; it is as Jesus stepped onto the boat that they began to understand who He was, and what that meant for them.

Well, that’s my ramblings about it, anyway.