The Moderator's Defense of the Archbishop

The Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network has made some remarks that are both critical of Bishop Chane’s essay on Archbishop Akinola and of church leaders who he accuses of colonialism.

Interestingly the Living Church and TLC has published a story on these remarks, using quotations from what it says are from a press release of March 15th from the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s press office. That article came out on March 14th but refers to the press release in the past tense, “Bishop Duncan emphasized the context of Nigerian culture in a statement released March 15.” So TLC it appears had the press release a day earlier than its official posting.

The release was dated March 15th and as of today, March 16th, has not yet been posted by the AAC or the Network pages, nor has it appeared on Titusonenine, or the Episcopal News Service, or for that matter by the Diocese of Pittsburgh. David Virtue did post it. I am sure others, including the Diocese of Pittsburgh, will get around to it.


Here it is:

“Press Release for immediate release

Pittsburgh, PA

March 15, 12006

The following quote was released from The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop
of Pittsburgh and Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network today:

Bishop Chane’s comments betray a profound lack of empathy or
understanding for the position that Archbishop Akinola and all
Christians in find themselves in. During the last few weeks in , an
archdeacon has been murdered and two bishops have survived assassination
attempts. All were attacked by what appear to be Islamic extremists.
During the same time, Islamic violence ignited by the publishing of
Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed have claimed the lives of scores
of lay Christians and seen numerous churches destroyed in .

Further, it should be noted that while the proposed law sounds harsh to
American ears, the penalty for homosexual activities in those parts of
Africa under Islamic Sharia law (such as the Sudan and portions of
Northern Nigeria for that matter) is death. It is precisely the
imposition of these much harsher Sharia laws that Archbishop Akinola and
other Anglican leaders in Africa have resisted so strongly for many
years with little publicity or support from the West.

It is jarring, to say the least, to see church leaders, who claim to
champion the primacy of local understanding and culture, demanding that
foreign sister churches give up their own local understanding and
culture and be judged by an American understanding of individual rights.
There is a word for the one-way imposition of values – colonialism.”

The charge that Bishop Chane’s essay in the Washington Post “betray(s) a profound lack of empathy.” Well, Bishop Chane in the article is not questioning the Archbishop’s difficult ministry in a complex social and political context, nor is he (I would hazard to guess) unmindful of the religious struggles in Nigeria. Rather he questions the why the Archbishop actively backs the proposed law, given the Anglican Communion’s statements on the need to respect homosexual persons. More importantly, Bishop Chane asks the following:

“I also feel compelled to ask the archbishop's many high-profile supporters in this country why they have not publicly dissociated themselves from his attack on the human rights of a vulnerable population. Is it because they support this sort of legislation, or because the rights of gay men and women are not worth the risk of tangling with an important alliance?”

The Moderator’s remarks answer this question in several ways:

1. The Moderator does not distance himself from the Archbishop’s actions but rather suggests that the Archbishop is providing a moderate alternative to Sharia law. He says, “It is precisely the imposition of these much harsher Sharia laws that Archbishop Akinola and other Anglican leaders in Africa have resisted so strongly for many years with little publicity or support from the West.” The Moderator perhaps does not remember the serious protests from the West of the Sharia law and its use of beheading, cutting off of hands, and other inhumane punishments that have arisen in the past. And perhaps the Moderator has admitted the harshness of the proposed Nigerian laws by making the comparison of harsh and harsher. Nothing however is said to the imposition of laws against public assembly and meetings to redress grievances. Human rights violations are very much to the point in criticizing Sharia laws, but also in criticizing the development of unjust civil law. For this reason the State Department has issued a criticism of the proposed law, and it is for this reason that concerned people of faith should also enter the conversation. It is also what makes the Archbishop of Canterbury's scathing atack on the US Prison in Guantanamo appropraite and powerful.
   

1. Bishop Chane asks why there has not been a criticism of the Archbishop’s support of the proposed law: “Is it because they support this sort of legislation, or because the rights of gay men and women are not worth the risk of tangling with an important alliance?” The Moderator seems to support the law as the lesser of two evils, and he comes to the defense of the Archbishop without once raising a question about the proposed law itself, except to say that it is harsh. It would appear that the answer is obvious – the alliance is too important. The Moderator’s remarks do him a disservice.

In his closing sentences the Moderator says,

“It is jarring, to say the least, to see church leaders, who claim to champion the primacy of local understanding and culture, demanding that foreign sister churches give up their own local understanding and culture and be judged by an American understanding of individual rights. There is a word for the one-way imposition of values – colonialism.”

The Moderator seems to miss the point that the values being promoted in the question and challenge to the Archbishop are not “American understanding(s) of individual rights” but rights that are recognized widely by the community of nations as pertaining to all people – particularly the right to freedom of speech and assembly, and obligations that hold, supposedly, for the community of churches in the Anglican Communion to assure gay and lesbian members of the churches that they are Children of God and assured of the same dignity give to all persons.

The Moderator accuses Bishop Chane, and by extension other church leaders that are critical of the Archbishop, of colonialism. There is no doubt in my mind that very much of whatever an American Anglican says betrays some form of colonialism, for just as we are all at some level racist we also stand convicted of colonialism. And one day in God’s justice, the race card will be played along with the colonialist card, and when that comes we will all be found wanting. Meanwhile, casting the first stone will have its consequences, not the least of which is that it answers Bishop Chane’s question, and not to the good.

Not a Worldwide Church, but a Fellowship

A snippet from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lenten letter to the Primates: “I hope that we shall be continuing to think and pray about the challenges that face us as a worldwide church.”

Perhaps this is part of the problem we face: the Archbishop of Canterbury believes there is a worldwide church called the Anglican Communion, rather than communion among a worldwide fellowship of churches. The difference between the one and the other is clear:

If one believes that the Anglican Communion is a worldwide church, then matters of ecclesial life are indeed central. If there is such a worldwide church, such concerns as constitutions, ordinances, covenants (as between persons and institutions) and the exercise of power by persons or groups ordained by God or ordered by commonwealth, state, or ecclesial power provides the final arbitration of inclusion or exclusion in membership.

If to the contrary “communion” in “Anglican Communion” is not simply part of the name of a church, but rather a description of relationship, and if on the contrary the Anglican Communion is not a worldwide church but rather a fellowship of churches, then matters of commonality are of vital importance, and matters of ecclesial and hierarchical powers of no importance at all.

The Anglican Communion as a “worldwide church” would be no more and no less an example of the fractured principalities and powers that corrupt the body of Christ than is the Church of Rome and any other such organ of the body. Who needs it?

The Anglican Communion as a fellowship of churches at least has the vitality and possibility of being a community drawn together and pulled apart both by the many layered connections of family likeness, common faith, and uncommon experience. Power in such an environment is dispersed, and sometimes even confused. It is certainly unlike power and authority as exercised by worldwide churches. Indeed, power is less interesting and less compelling then the possibilities of relationships of loving kindness and broken relationships of mutual distrust. In such relationships there is at least life, abundantly and shared.

In all the wringing of hands and wagging of heads about the possible breakup of the Anglican Communion we have come to believe what the Archbishop let slip…that we are a worldwide church on the brink of fracture.

Perhaps we have missed the abundance of God’s grace to us… that we are not a worldwide church at all, but rather a fellowship. This is abundance because we are not one thing but many things, held together not because we are one in ourselves, but because we are one in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I find it interesting too that the Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed concern that the Anglican Communion might end up being a fractured federation rather than a communion. This concern seems to make of Communion a parallel to either English empire or commonwealth, and federation parallel to some sort of unseemly amalgam of German principalities, each with its own potentates, (thus the reference to the Lutheran world federation) or worse a federation (like, say the Federal Government of the United States.)

Fair enough: I am not at all sure that honest Empire (which is after all the end reach of worldwide bodies politic, spiritual or temporal) is any worse or better than dishonest Empire under the guise of a gargantuan federal system that runs roughshod over the world (as the US or the Episcopal Church is accused of being.)

But if communion is about the actual, real and entirely local participation in communion (and there is no other) neither the open aspirations to worldwide ecclesial authority nor the de facto exercise of such power is relevant.

I believe communion (as in the Anglican Communion) has as its final proof of being the genuine, immediate, incarnational activity of sharing the Meal. The proof of the vitality of the Anglican Communion will continue to be seen when Anglicans seek out one another in that special way that old friends, family and even old enemies do, to have that one last meal together before the onslaught of the day.

I believe we must learn again and again to understand who we are for one another against the backdrop of the future, not the past. The past only provides division, power and the foolishness of princes. We must know one another as in communion because we eat today the bread of tomorrow.

Hold the Anglican Church of Nigeria to Account

The Archbishop of Nigeria, in his pastoral letter to the Church of Feburary 25, 2006 wrote the following:

“The Anglican World Today:
These times are perilous for our Communion world-wide, resulting from the continuing obstinate revisionist agenda, master-minded by ECUSA and her allies. We must intensify our prayers for the truth of the word of God to be the guiding light for the Church. We will also do more by ensuring that we do not associate with ECUSA in any official capacity. We have already taken a decision to train our clergy and church staff within our own environment and in partnership only with those who hold similar biblical views of God and human sexuality with us. The emergence of Church of Nigeria Mission to America, known and called, ‘Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), registered Charity Trust in U.S.A., is a serious step to put into action our bible-based convictions. We solicit your prayers for God to guide our future, especially with our being called upon to offer leadership both to the Global South and CAPA. We remain committed to the orthodox faith rooted in sound doctrines about Jesus Christ and the purity of the Gospel as a sure way of gaining our true economic emancipation and presenting a holistic mission now being threatened by some churches in Europe, North America and Canada.”

The September 2005 Press Release that accompanied the announcement of the change in the Constitution that allowed for convocations of churches related to the Church of Nigeria outside Nigeria said this, “The Constitutional change also allowed the Church to create Convocations and Chaplaincies of like-minded faithful outside Nigeria. This effectively gives legal teeth to the Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in Americas (CANA) formed to give a worshiping refuge to thousands in the USA who no longer feel welcomed to worship in the Liberal churches especially with the recent theological innovations encouraging practices which the Nigerians recognize as sin.”

CANA at least at first was an acronym for “Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in Americas.” In an odd little piece titled, “The miracle of CANA continues,” the Archbishop slides this title in the direction it has now taken… there he said, “Earlier this year we announced CANA - a mission of the Church of Nigeria, a Convocation for Anglicans in North America. We see this as a creative way to provide pastoral and episcopal care for those alienated by the actions of ECUSA. As we said in our letter of April 7th, 2005, 'Our intention is not to challenge or intervene in the churches of ECUSA or the Anglican Church of Canada but to provide safe harbour for all those who can no longer find their spiritual home in those churches.' While CANA is an initiative of the Church of Nigeria it is our desire to welcome all those who share our faith and vision for the Church.”


So the transmogrification is complete: It starts as CANA, “the Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in Americas,” and ends up being CANA, “a Convocation for Anglicans in North America.” It moves from any semblance of being about a place of refuge for Nigerian Anglicans, and becomes an extension of a provincial structure of one province in another whose target population is members of the Episcopal Church. The second title, the one for which letters of incorporation are written, is unabashedly the creation of a second Anglican structure in the United States and Canada.

The Church of Nigeria and its Archbishop have broken off official relations with the Episcopal Church and so it is no wonder that they see the United States as “open missionary territory.” But this set of actions is so clearly in total disregard of long standing Anglican Communion principles that there is more than adequate grounds for demanding that the Church of Nigeria be held accountable before the rest of the Communion.

The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada need to immediately demand that the Church of Nigeria end its activities in developing the Convocation for Anglicans in North America, and that if it does not do so that it be held accountable to the rest of the Communion for such actions.

If we keep silent, the Church of Nigeria simply walks away with the license to do as it wishes while claiming to be true to Anglican principles. Enough!

Keeping Perspective

Keeping Perspective:

Every once and a while it is good to put things in perspective. Kathryn and I have a son, Matthew (Matt), and a daughter, Emanuela (Ema); they are doing things that further the art of being human in ways that (at least speaking for myself) I could never hope to with all my mutterings about life and times in the church and faith. The perspective I have gained has helped me see my present concerns against a different backdrop.

Through Matt I have been able to glimpse, in an evolutionary – developmental (aka evo-devo) way, a history much older than any of normally part of “holy history” and find even there a whisper of the wonder that lies behind good theology. He has just published a paper on the discovery of chicken embryos (how be it mutated ones) with teeth and from that finding evidence to support a common ancestor of both chickens and alligators. For real science see his paper, The Development of Archosaurian First-Generation Teeth in a Chicken Mutant and a report on his paper . The material stuff in some odd way remembers. At least some of our history is there, hidden in ancient patterns.

Through Ema I have been challenged again to see again the many leveled layering of observation, emotion and sensibility that builds up and forms the lattice work of the ordinary world. In her art Ema takes apart and reassembles those layers so that even I can sometimes see the underpinnings of what seem to be simple experiences of the real. This week Ema is part of a new show at the Frey Norris Gallery in San Francisco. Her work is energetic and challenging, but most of all (for me) it opens the gates of perception, and gives me new perspective on all the stuff of belief.


With these great tools of perception, it reduces the size and shape of the issues I currently deal with on this blog. It may be very important for the Episcopal Church in the context of the Anglican Communion to work out its future as a church, but very important is relative. Next to good art and good science some of this stuff we deal with is perhaps less desperately essential to the unfolding of the universe and the construction of reality than we previously supposed.

What is clear is how blessed we feel to be part of their lives. Perhaps some of their courage and exploration will find its way into the work for a church that can exhibit love and justice both.

Finally a Bishop Speaks Out

Thinking Anglicans, always the source of important material on Anglican Communion matters, just today (2/25/2006) noted that the Washington Post has an article by Bishop John Chane that is highly critical of the Archbishop of Nigeria and his support for Nigeria’s new law criminalizing homosexual acts and organizing to support homosexuals or their rights. It is wonderful to finally see in print the criticism others and I have called for HERE and HERE. It is important that such criticism come from sources of some considerable authority. As Bishop of Washington, John Chane is in a position to bring his criticial and prophetic powers forward and to put the skunk on the table. Thanks, Bishop Chane; thanks Thinking Anglicans.