Initial Observations on General Convention
Anglican Communion Institute – June 21, 2006
The Windsor-related resolutions coming out of General Convention today require, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has noted, some time for study before their significance and import can properly be evaluated. Such study, furthermore, must be done in the context of the wider Communion, and not simply from the limited perspective of our individual circumstances. However, a few initial observations can be made.
How General Convention practically engaged the “ Windsor Process”:
It was discouraging to watch as one of the most important decisions the Episcopal Church has had to face was telescoped into a final 24 hours of frantic parliamentary conflict and maneuvering. No one can claim that the issues were not well examined, diversely engaged, and publicly articulated over the course of the past 3 years. This therefore raises a series of questions:
· Why were last minute clarifications - from Windsor Commission members and representatives from elsewhere in the Communion - required before engaging the inadequacy of the language proposed by our own Special Commission, as if obvious comparisons between the two had never been made before?
· How is it that such inadequate language emerged in the first place?
· Why is it that so much time was spent on 2-minute ventilations instead of careful consultation with appropriate representatives from the Communion and our own leadership?
· How is it that our own Presiding Bishop waited, after three years of controversy, until the very last day of Convention to speak with direction about the demands of the Windsor “process” with respect to resolutions?
· How is it that our House of Bishops, after having insisted over several years that only the full General Convention had the authority to respond to Windsor, ended up having to bend the rules of Convention itself to squeeze out a whimpered reaction?
· How is it that, after all the clarifications of the past week - not to mention three years - no clearly responsive communion resolutions came to the floor for vote?
· How is it that the final resolution that passed, B033, in its second resolve actually contradicts the lop-sided vote in favor of the new Presiding Bishop Elect, not to mention other actions of the Convention?
If there is anything to be learned from this procedural quagmire, it is that the General Convention was not up to (and should never have been given the task of) dealing with this difficult set of issues. This, despite some Communion representatives’ own (misguided) understanding that only General Convention was legally capable of responding to the Communion’s needs. Much appropriate authority is vested in our bishops meeting in council that might well have addressed the pertinent matters had that authority been exercised thoughtfully together. Instead, we have been left to witness a conjunction of long-term corporate paralysis giving way to short-term conciliar seizures.
In short, the work of the Convention around these matters, despite the clearly engaged and committed labors of many individuals on committees and on the floor (and this valiant witness should not be overlooked), was a hodge-podge of far-too-little-far-too-late reflection and decision-making, that can be attributed to the guidance of the Holy Spirit only to the degree that we are convinced that divine Providence rules over the abject irresponsibility of men and women.
The tenor of the resolutions passed
It was very clear early on in the Convention’s debates – both in committees, in hearings, and on the floor – that there was neither a substantive majority ready to uphold Windsor ’s actual recommendations, nor a coherent desire to find some alternative. Commitments were irreconcilably split, in theological terms, and the existence of some “middle way” was never practically demonstrated. The insistence by the Special Committee and the pleas by a few that such a “middle way” not only constituted the “real” mind of the church, or that it was the “true vocation” of the church, or even that such a way could be coherently argued theologically proved futile, and probably contributed to the wasting of time and the increasing frustration of deputies and onlookers. One important reality that seems to have emerged from this frustrated hope is that the notion of a “middle way”within Anglicanism may well be, to use a favorite phrase from the Convention debates, a “red herring”. The larger Communion’s theological commitments, whatever their real diversities, are not properly characterized as a “middle way” in anything but a broad ecumenical context (if that). Relative to this larger Communion, anything within the American Episcopal Church that could possible be called “moderate” or “compromising” is likely still to lie far outside the mainstream of the rest of the Anglican world. Some years ago, the Episcopal Church was called, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, “out of step” with the Communion. There is no “middle” rhythm in this dance.
The final and crucial Resolution B033 represents such an “outlying” response to Windsor . It commits the General Convention to a common “process of healing and reconciliation” and calls upon Standing Committees and bishops to “exercise restraint” in refusing consent to episcopal candidates “whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion”. Very few people, on a moment’s reflection, will believe that this climactic statement to the Communion will satisfy the hopes and needs of most of those whose common ministry and mission has been compromised by the Episcopal Church’s actions over the past few years, especially those actions bound up in Gene Robinson’s consent and consecration and in the widespread performance of same-sex blessings in our church. The problems are three-fold:
1. Vagueness: B033 does not in fact mention the occasioning offense to the Communion’s life of the nomination, election, consent, and consecration of a sexually active gay bishop, although this is what the Windsor Report’s recommendations explicitly requested that the Episcopal Church deal with and even apologize for. It does not mention, either explicitly or by synonym, the cessation of such choices to the episcopacy. Indeed, it couches its recommendations in such vague terms that, as noted before, it should (by normal logic) have “restrained” Bp. Jefferts-Schori’s election as Presiding Bishop, given that her manner of conducting affairs in Nevada has been a long series of affronts to Windsor’s recommendations, both specifically and ecclesiologically. Likewise it should have “restrained” the consent to the bishop-elect of Northern California , due to his 3 marriages. Both of these elections will “strain” communion. But so will the election of any number of other possible candidates – because of their theology, marriage-status, personality, and so on. Windsor was careful not to so broaden the category of communion-criteria as to eviscerate the possibility of dealing with a known and identifiable challenge to communion such as was necessary at this time, thereby providing clear guidance as to how a concept like “restraint” ought properly to be applied. Vagueness undermines order. As Chief Justice John Roberts recently wrote, in arguing for “narrow rulings” at the Supreme Court, “the rule of law is strengthened when there is greater coherence and agreement about what the law is”. B033 neither embodies coherence nor agreement. If it begs interpretation, it also promises exhaustion in ever agreeing on such interpretation.
2. Avoidance: The fact that same-sex blessings were not addressed at all, in either B033 or in any other resolution, represents a devastating lacuna in General Convention’s response to Windsor. Given that the new Presiding Bishop-elect is a well-known facilitator of such blessings, this silence affords Bp. Jefferts-Schori at least a certain room to maneuver within Convention. But if in fact B033 cannot point up the inconsistency between its recommendations and the actual actions of its leaders, then it only proves its own uselessness. In any case, leaving both the Communion and members of the Episcopal Church to guess at the status of same-sex blessings within this church seems, under the circumstances of the last few years’ conflicts, to be a grave disservice to our common life and trust. While the need to use “the exact language of Windsor” in its resolutions was perhaps overblown, at least within a context of genuine desire to respond positively, General Convention’s refusal or failure even to address central elements of Windsor’s requests, with or without exact language, only testifies to the Convention’s own internal inadequacy to engage the Communion at the most basic level. It thus undercuts even the most generous reading of B033’s first resolve. Here, for instance, is what the Windsor Report actually asks with respect to same-sex blessings:
While we recognise that the Episcopal Church (USA) has by action of
Convention made provision for the development of public Rites of Blessing of
same sex unions, the decision to authorise rests with diocesan bishops.
Because of the serious repercussions in the Communion, we call for a
moratorium on all such public Rites, and recommend that bishops who have
authorised such rites in the United States and Canada be invited to express
regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached
by such authorisation. Pending such expression of regret, we recommend that
such bishops be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should
withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion.
We recommend that provinces take responsibility for endeavouring to ensure
commitment on the part of their bishops to the common life of the Communion
on this matter (The Windsor Report, par. 144)
It seems evident, therefore, that General Convention set aside a major element of the Windsor Report’s recommendations; and that the “invitation” to withdraw from representative functions in the Anglican Communion still stands – an invitation apparently now aimed at our own Presiding Bishop-Elect. It is hard to see why the Convention left their new leader hanging in this way.
3. Contradictions and loss of trust: It was instructive, if not exactly spiritually edifying, to have broadcast around the world the actual debates of committees, hearings, and floor-votes. What becomes apparent in the summary of these is that there was little unified desire within the Convention to press forward with a positive response to Windsor’s requests, nor was a there anything close to a common mind about what any of these requests actually signified or amounted to. The final scurry to come up with B033, after the House of Deputies firmly rejected another stronger, but still vague omnibus resolution, did nothing except emphasize the press for expedience over substance, appearance over commitment. The question, “what can pass?” had overcome the question “what is required of us?”. The difficult fit between the Presiding Bishop-elect’s theological practice and the claims by Convention to communion sensitivity is only one more element in this larger series of contradictory actions (including the House of Bishops’ resolution opposing civil definitions of marriage as being between a man and a woman, a resolution rejecting traditional definitions of salvation in Christ [D058], and more). Other Windsor-related resolutions that did in fact pass, subsequent to the rejection by the House of Deputies of a more comprehensive (if still inadequate) omnibus resolution, simply lost their credibility in the shadow the Convention’s desire to avoid response over the concrete matters at issue: A159 on “commitment to interdependence”, A165 on the “listening process”, and A166 on the “Covenent Process” all now seem as intent on pacifying gay members of the church as they do articulating any substantive change of heart and action by the church as a whole. Indeed, given what Convention did in toto, it is hard to know what these resolutions actually mean. At this point of public exposure, it will be hard for members of this church or of other churches to trust any promise by the Episcopal Church to renewed Communion commitment. There is simply too much now that has been written, said, and decided within the context of this Convention that indicates otherwise. Indeed, to have bishops, like Chane of Washington and others, immediately announce their intention to continue acting in ways contrary to Windsor’s requests and Resolution B033 as passsed, provides more than a “mixed message”; it destroys the notion of common agreement altogether.
There was much talk on the Special Committee of providing the church and Communion some “space” to listen, learn, grow, and reconcile. Is the present chaotic and incompetent outcome to the General Convention a contradiction of that hope? Perhaps not. Certainly the idea that there is something called “the highest degree of communion possible” that goes beyond “having my cake and eating it too” has been exploded. Still, the explosion may be salutary. Indeed, we are now in a position where we can all see very clearly the incapacities of this church to move forward together, both in the United States and within the Communion, under the present arrangements of leadership and decision-making. This represents a clearing of the air, and one not particularly filled with acrimony, for all the robust interchange of the last few days. That is, we have entered a “space” where the Communion councils may now respond to the true condition of our church; where members of our church – bishops, dioceses, congregations, and clergy – may state clearly their commitments without engendering disbelief in response; and where the conjunction of the two – communion council and local commitment – may now permit a slow and orderly process of reconfiguration, perhaps even disengagement of the warring factions of this battered body, where Primates can work together and not at odds with one another, where bishops and clergy can amicably part ways if necessary, where others can wait with a confident patience and not a destructive demand for God to direct our sifting. Certainly we have reached a moment of clarity; now we may pray for the maturity and self-control to walk through it without anger or recrimination.
