Commentary on Dr Allison and Dr Radner
B. Todd Granger, MD
Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20040220061555/http://anglicancommunioninstitute.org:80/granger040126.htm
The Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle
26 January 2004
Published in Anglican journalist David Virtue's e-mail digest, the Rt Rev Dr Fitzsimmons Allison, Bishop of South Carolina (ret), has written a considered response to Dr Ephraim Radner's paper, "What Are We To Do: The Humiliation of Anglicanism", that Dr Radner presented at the ACI conference in Charleston two weeks ago. Dr Allison is himself a scholar, and has published thoughtful works on several subjects of importance. His objections to Dr Radner's argument are worth considering, especially his charge that the program seems more like masochism than humility and his concerns about the Anglican Reformation.
A few of my own observations in this context.
First, I regret that Dr Allison grounds his argument in the politics of the English Civil War. Discussions of the development of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, while these may be salutary developments in the life of humanity and indeed owe much to the Christian faith of the Puritan and parliamentary revolutionaries, seem very much out of place in a discussion of where Christian faithfulness lies in this present crisis. Second, I think that the Anglican Reformation (as well other reformations of entire churches, like those of the German principalities and cities, the Swiss cantons, Scotland and Sweden) is not easily subjected to a simplistic calculus of "right" or "wrong". A careful, non-hagiographical and non-triumphalist reading of the history of the 16th century "evangelical" movement in England and the papalist and Catholic reactions to it will, I think, lead us to agree with the assessment that Jaroslav Pelikan gave of the Reformation some years ago: that it was a tragic necessity. Protestants, he said, fail to recognize the tragedy; and Catholics, the necessity. Third, regarding the French Calvinists (Huguenots) - among whom I too have ancestors, Dr Radner has previously noted this, though not in precisely the way that Dr Allison raises the question. Dr Radner has pointed out the the Jansenists, those Catholics in France and the Low Countries who asserted a radically Augustinian understanding of God's grace and sovereignty not unlike that of the Calvinists, who were essentially extirpated by the French crown and the Catholic Church in France during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and who remained steadfastly within that Church, insisting that it would be unfaithful to leave that unfaithful Church, wrote and debated with the French Calvinists, insisting that their error was in leaving the Church. It would have been better, the Jansenists admonished the Huguenots, to have had no faithful pastors than to have broken with the Catholic Church. I am undecided on whether the Jansenists (and by extension, Dr Radner) or the Huguenots are right. But understand that I write this as an Anglican who keeps in remembrance every 24 August not only the commemoration of St Bartholomew the Apostle, but also the tens of thousands of Huguenot martyrs who were slaughtered by the French Crown with the agreement of the Church on that date in 1572.
Fourth, I would agree with Dr Allison's assessment that heretical or heterodox bishops must be opposed (and insofar as he has given his approval to a teaching that contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture and of catholic Tradition, I would say that our own Bishop Curry is a heterodox bishop, as is our bishop suffragan, Bishop Gloster). The admonitions of St Cyprian of Carthage and of Origen, of the Anglican "Father" Richard Hooker, as well the pronouncement of the Council of Constantinople,
"They who separate themselves from communion with their bishop on account of any heresy condemned by the Holy Synods of the Fathers, while he evidently proclaims the heresy publicly, and teaches it with brave front in Church - such persons, in excluding themselves from communion with their so-called bishop before Synodical cognizance, not only shall not be subject to canonical censure, but shall be deemed worthy, by the Orthodox, of becoming honor; for they condemn as teachers, not bishops but pseudo-bishops; and they do not cut up the unity of the Church by schism, but hasten to deliver her from schisms and divisions."
mean that we are bound to oppose false teachers and "bad" bishops. But obviously there is a matter of discernment, as to when the bishop in question is teaching heresy "condemned by the Holy Synods of the Fathers".
I offer the following thoughts, perhaps more for consideration and discussion than thinking them any particular position from which I can make decisions. In offering these thoughts, I would say that we must take seriously the question that Dr Radner laid before us in Charleston, that the important question at this time isn't "What are we to do?" but rather "What is GOD doing?" This means that we move from an attitude of reaction to an attitude of discernment, and yes, perhaps waiting.
But we do not wait to denounce and oppose as heterodox those teachings and practices that violate the clear teaching of the holy Scriptures and of catholic tradition. That we must do, and do so consistently and forcefully. Both Dr Radner and Dr Allison have done that over the course of their ministries. Dr Radner freely admits that he is a presbyter in a Church "with no legitimate authority", and he further admits that his own bishop renounced his legitimate authority in voting with the majority at General Convention, a convention which, in Dr Radner's mind, rejected its own synodical authority in rejecting the Church's doctrinal standards in the Scriptures and the Book of Common Prayer, as well rejecting the Church's institutional standards in the Constitution and Canons. But, recognizing their agreement on this point, the question becomes whether we must continue to live faithfully under illegitimate authorities (Radner) or must separate from those authorities (Allison).
If we frame this question in terms of God's providence and activity rather than our own reaction, then I believe that we can better trust the faithfulness and truth of the answer. Reliance on our own individual or local reasoning as to where faithfulness may be found after having rejected the unfaithfulness of the Episcopal Church is as much an assertion of autonomy as the Episcopal Church's rejection of Scripture, tradition, and the consensus of the faithful in most of the Anglican Communion and the Church Catholic. Departure when we are not called to depart is an act of unfaithfulness, especially when God may be calling (some of) us to remain and be a witness to the truth in the midst of those who have turned their gaze from the truth and have set their minds and hearts against it.
How might God's providence be demonstrated at this time? How can we discern what God is doing? How shall we hear God's call to us in a time of darkness, confusion, and depression?
It may well be that our discernment lies in what the rest of the Communion is telling us. For my own part, I am convinced of this. I am deeply distressed not only by the Episcopal Church's rejection of catholic teaching and practice and of the common discernment of the wider Communion. I am also deeply distressed by those who disagree - and who even reject - the doctrinal, liturgical, and ecclesial unfaithfulness of the Episcopal Church, but who will not listen to the Anglicans of the Global South, to the Church of Rome, to the Patriarchate of Moscow, and to the Oriental Orthodox Churches when they declare the serious, communion-impairing and cooperation-threatening consequences of that infidelity. To continue to act as though the Episcopal Church is dealing with only a difference of opinion, that our common life and vows and faithfulness have not been threatened, that the only significant difference is one of emotive response to the actions of General Convention - whether mourning or celebration or confusion or being nonplussed - is to have ceased listening to Archbishop Akinola and Archbishop Gomez and Bishop Venables, or indeed to Cardinal Ratzinger or to Patriarch Alexy.
The fact that the epistle for yesterday, the Third Sunday after the Epiphany and the date of Holy Family's annual meeting, was the passage in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in which he rejects a dismissive, "I have no need of you" attitude toward other members of the body should have weighed heavily on the minds and hearts of those gathered.
For our part, the Martin-Granger family are committed to remaining at Church of the Holy Family, and in the Episcopal Church, at least until the commission appointed by +Cantuar reports to the Communion on the matters before it (relating to the limits of communion, mutual discernment, and discipline).. If the commission reports back in a way that the Global South primates believe threatens historic, evangelical and catholic faith and order, they will probably recognize that the Communion has been fractured and will declare a new Anglican Communion. Archbishop Drexel Gomez made this much clear in Charleston. But if the commission reports back in such a way as to allow for disciplining of the Episcopal Church (and the Diocese of New Westminster) in some meaningful fashion, so as to allow the reordering of our common life in accordance with historic Christian faith and order, then the common life and fellowship of the Communion, as well the catholic and apostolic faith within the Episcopal Church, has the possibility of being restored fully.
If the Communion be broken, then I believe, having read and heard what I have (only publicly - obviously I am privy to nothing of these matters), that the faithful primates of the new Communion will not recognize the Episcopal Church as a catholic Church and will recognize faithful Anglicans in the United States and Canada as representing Anglicanism in North America. This would likely include such bodies as the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, as well as the Anglican Mission in America, which is an outreach of the Church in Rwanda and is gathering support from more of the Global South primates (including those of the Churches of Congo and South India).
What, then, of Canterbury? If +Cantuar be not willing to discipline unfaithful bishops in ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada by exercise of his gathering authority in constituting the decennial Lambeth Conference of bishops, if he be not willing to assert, insofar as he is able in his own province and in the Communion widely, historic faith and order, then I suspect that he will be ignored by a new Anglican Communion whose theological and ecclesial center is in the Global South. I would truly grieve at losing the historic contact with the See of St Augustine, but catholicity - such as it can exist in the fractured and unreconciled state of the Christian churches - does not reside solely or even primarily in communion with the See of Canterbury. Every bishop of the Communion, each of the primates and bishops of the Global South provinces, each and every bishop of the Network, stands in historic succession. And our faith is that of the apostles, prophets, martyrs and confessors. Reading the reply to Doug LeBlanc written by the Claiming the Blessing Collaborative, one wonders exactly what faith the revisionists profess. The faith, sacraments, episcopacy, and common life of faithful Anglicans is that of St Augustine of Canterbury and of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, wherever stands any particular occupant of St Augustine's see.
In Christ's peace,
B. Todd Granger, M.D.
Church of the Holy Family
Chapel Hill, NC
