Unity, Order And Dissent: On How To Dissent Within a Communion of Churches

The purpose of this essay is to address a question to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Anglican Communion Office (ACO) and to the upcoming Meeting of the Primates. How are they, and indeed how is the Anglican Communion as a whole, to address the question of dissent? The issue has become important for Anglicans because of the crisis that has been brought on by the recent innovations in sexual ethics in both The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC). Anyone viewing the internal struggles brought on by these innovations is bound to be alarmed. Alarm is an appropriate reaction! The divisions occasioned by these innovations have revealed the inability of the Communion's Instruments of Unity to respond with dispatch, competence and coherence. The fast approaching Meeting of the Primates serves only to highlight this inability. Because the Presiding Bishop of TEC has announced her intention to attend, some Primates have already made a decision to boycott the meeting. This decision is yet another example of the "torn fabric" to which the Primates pointed in 2003. It has been preceded by a host of others. In response to the American and Canadian innovations, some provinces have started missionary activity or established structured relationships with dioceses and parishes within the borders of TEC and ACoC. A number have either broken communion with TEC or announced that their communion with TEC is now "impaired." Though the meaning of both "broken" and "impaired" communion remains notoriously obscure, at a minimum, the Communion is left with a compromised identity. There are provinces not in communion one with another that nonetheless jointly claim communion with Canterbury, even though Canterbury remains in full communion with the provinces with whom they have broken or impaired communion. More anomalous still is the fact that TEC considers itself still in full communion with provinces that have announced that their relation with TEC is broken or impaired. As one commentator recently put it, the Anglican Communion now looks like a wheel that has spokes running from a center but no rim. This sad state of affairs is in part the result of a distressing lack of charity all around. A part, however, is due to internal confusions and disagreement over how to address a province that dissents from what the Archbishop of Canterbury has termed "the established teaching" of the Anglican Communion. Confusion and disagreement reign! TEC asserts its rights as an autonomous church within the Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury apparently believes that ongoing conversation will eventually resolve the dispute. Other Primates call for discipline. Though highly compromised, the proposed Covenant charts a way for the provinces to allow for negative "consequences." We are confronted with something like an ecclesiastical Tower of Babel. The best one can say about this situation is that Anglicanism is following its age-old practice of "muddling through." To be sure, muddling through has its merits as long as the period of muddle provides space for a satisfactory resolution to the problems that occasioned it. Many, myself included, fear that the major players in this drama are not taking advantage of the period of muddle to reach a satisfactory resolution of the tensions that threaten to break the communion apart. The lack of charity that so divides us can be addressed only by repentance; and repentance, in God's time, will be brought on by divine judgment rather than moral resolve. In the mean time there is work to be done if the conceptual muddle is to be sorted out. The various provinces do not agree on what is implied by the claim of Anglicans to belong to a communion of churches. They do not agree on the means to sustain communion when threatened by internal conflicts. Finally (my concern in this essay) they do not understand how to address dissent in a way that strengthens rather than weakens common life. Though many would disagree, the Windsor Report represents a promising attempt to address the first issue, and the proposed covenant, despite its limitations, is a serious effort to come to grips with the second. The third issue, dissent within a communion of churches, has received no attention at all. Nevertheless, if ignored, the question of dissent will prove fatal. The communion that binds together Anglicans throughout the world is a form of conciliarism whose effectiveness depends upon a form of restraint the Windsor Report terms "mutual subjection in the body of Christ." Well and good one might say! But what is to be done if a province believes it contrary to the Gospel to be subject in respect to a particular matter? In this case, restraint requires an agreed upon form of dissent if communion is to survive. When a matter of dispute is considered of sufficient weight, there must be a way that does not undermine a more basic unity for a province to say no to communion opinion. There must be an acceptable form of dissent that in fact serves to strengthen and preserve the common belief and practice that gives communion identity. It is this form of dissent that the Communion's present struggles have revealed to be lacking. It is important to be clear about terms. By dissent, I do not mean disagreement. Disagreement takes place within an ongoing argument and is part of the healthy life of any community. By dissent I mean a flat out rejection of opposing opinion that may be accompanied by actions taken against the commonly recognized beliefs, practices and laws of a community. Dissenting action is different from disagreement. It is no longer seeking clarification or agreement. Rather, it is simply noncompliant. Dissent is also different from revolution. As displayed in the moral tradition of civil disobedience to which I will soon refer, dissent does not, like revolution, seek to undermine an entire society and/or system of government so as to remake them. Indeed, dissenters who stand in this tradition, by their very dissent, remain loyal to their community, society and government. They simply dissent from particular aspects of social life or particular actions by social institutions. In short, dissenters dissent to strengthen their society and its institutions rather than to replace them. Dissenters dissent because they believe certain courses of actions are unworthy of the society to which they belong, and they wish to correct an error while remaining part of and loyal to that society. Now to return to my starting point! Though TEC often claims its actions do no more than express justifiable and permissible disagreement with what many other Anglicans believe, these actions, even though accompanied by pleas for "dialogue," are more adequately understood as a form of dissent. The decisions to consecrate bishops who have sexual partners of the same gender and to go forward with rites that bless such relations was taken against the request (and so the moral authority) of all the Instruments of Communion and an Anglican teaching the Archbishop, interpreting the mind of the Communion, has held to be "established." I know of no credible way to describe what TEC has done as a simple disagreement. By acting against the request of the Instruments of Communion and established Anglican teaching, TEC, even though there are supporting voices from other parts of the Communion, is in dissent; and this dissent has been expressed in public action that is, in an ecclesial sense, disobedient. It is disobedient in that it has been expressed in actions that are not submissive to the "moral authority" Anglicans attribute to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Instruments of Communion. The question is whether TEC's disobedience signals loyalty to the Communion and a concern for its faithfulness or an incipient form of revolution--an attempt to replace one form of common life with another. This is the question that has not been asked. How might a satisfactory answer be found? I suggest that the ancient and well-tried tradition of civil disobedience provides an analogy by means of which the Communion can think about TEC's actions and so also the nature of its own communion. Civil disobedience is one way of speaking of dissent within the civil realm. Ecclesial disobedience is one way of speaking of dissent within a communion of churches. The tradition of civil disobedience is generally traced back to Socrates who both recognized the authority of the state to execute him and submitted to its judgment. The tradition that began with the Ancient Greeks has been carried on through the ages and its exponents have included people of remarkable integrity and effectiveness. America has produced two of its most heralded exponents--Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King. To that list can be added men of different nationalities--Tolstoy, Gandhi and Bertrand Russell to list but a few. There are significant differences between the accounts given by these men (and others) of civil disobedience, but there is general agreement that an act of civil disobedience must be nonviolent and public. In addition, to signal basic loyalty, its practitioners must recognize the authority of government and so submit to its sanctions. Their argument is not with the government per se, but with a particular act of that government. Nonviolence, publicity, and submission are the marks that distinguish civil disobedience from revolution. Other marks found in most, but not all, advocates of civil disobedience are that it be undertaken when there is no reasonable chance of changing an objectionable practice through normal institutional processes and that the effects of disobedience do not cause unacceptable harm to the order of society. Recognizing that TEC's actions have been taken against a form of moral authority rather than that of an overarching political order, how do TEC's actions appear when viewed through the prism of this moral tradition? With the consecration of two gay bishops and the recent initiation of gay blessings by TEC's General Convention, actions that in the past might be categorized as private became public acts of dissent by an entire province. I believe it accurate to say that these actions were taken for two reasons. Their advocates believe the exclusion of gay people from the full life of the church is contrary to the Christian message, and they see no hope for a change in communion teaching within what for them is an acceptable span of time. I do not believe that TEC's General Convention or its House of Bishops took careful measure of the likely consequences of their action within the life of the Communion or within the life of TEC itself for that matter. Indeed, too frequently one heard in justification of likely harmful results flip comments like, "To make an omelet you have to break eggs." For the sake of argument, however, let us say that the negative consequences may have reasonably been judged acceptable. Though many would say that the tactics used over the years to gain full inclusion of gay people within the life of the church have, because they employed various forms of threat, bordered on violence, let us assume also for the sake of argument that the actions taken by TEC have been nonviolent. The key question in this case, however, is whether TEC, in its dissent, has expressed submission to the Communion's means of carrying out its mission, preserving its identity and ordering its common life. The answer to this question is most surely negative, and this for several reasons. First, as I have pointed out before, TEC has a long tradition of making changes in its own life by those favoring change first acting in a way contrary to TEC's own canons and then pleading immunity from consequences because they have acted in a prophetic manner. Having established a righteous high ground, a plea then goes out for dialogue. In this way, dissent expressed as disobedience is portrayed as a mere disagreement that can be sorted out by conversation. In the aftermath of the Robinson consecration, TEC is now making the same case to the Communion as a whole. Second, TEC now seeks to escape the consequences of its actions by arguing that the proposed covenant establishes a centralized juridical authority that has no place in Anglican tradition. Accompanying this claim is one for the unfettered autonomy of the provinces of the Communion. Each province in its own place and in its own way is to determine the shape of its common life, and in doing so is not, save in the vaguest of senses, accountable to the other provinces. TEC appears to argue for a level of diversity that has no effective boundaries. Bishop Chris Epting, TEC's former ecumenical officer, stated this position quite clearly in a recent posting on The Lead. He wrote, "Autonomous, but interdependent (in mission) "national churches" are still the best way to honor Anglican ecclesiology in the past and point us toward the future." Note the brackets and scare quotes in this statement! It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that communion, according to Bishop Epting, in no way impinges on the autonomy of a "national church" and that communion consists in voluntary agreements to share in mission. Note also that TEC now understands mission largely in terms of promoting the millennium goals rather than as sharing in the work of evangelism. In response to the charge of centralized authority and the accompanying plea for unfettered autonomy, one must say that a careful reading of the Covenant like that done by my colleague Andrew Goddard demonstrates beyond doubt that the claim that the provisions of the covenant sets up a central authority is simply false. In his most recent address to the General Synod of The Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury has made the same case. The proposed covenant does no more than establish a Standing Committee with the authority to make recommendations to the various instruments and/or provinces about what the consequences of an action the Communion does not "recognize" might be. In respect to the plea for unfettered autonomy one can only say that TEC, from its inception and in its ecumenical conversations, has understood communion to involve mutual recognition of doctrine, order and worship. Bishop Epting has made up his novel account of communion out of whole cloth rather than historical fact. There is a Third indication that TEC is actively seeking to escape the consequences of its actions--this time through a series of political maneuvers within the ACC and ACO. These maneuvers, plainly visible at the recent meeting of the ACC in Jamaica are designed to shield TEC from any negative consequences that might be set in motion by recommendations issuing from the Standing Committee. (http://aci.local/2009/05/acc-14-did-the-members-know-what-they-were-voting-on/)Regarding these maneuvers one can only say that TEC's success in this enterprise has destroyed the ability of the Standing Committee in its present form to do the job with which the Covenant charges it. Its present composition and its new institutional location within the ACC have destroyed its credibility and, for all practical purposes, rendered it inoperative. (http://aci.local/2010/08/the-acc-articles-of-association-questions-remain/) These three elements of TEC's self-defense hardly suggest loyalty and submission to mutually recognized moral authority and common order. However, there is a fourth aspect of TEC's response to Communion reaction that is more troubling than any of the previous three. It is more troubling because it suggests that TEC's refusal to submit to consequences may be more a prelude to revolution than a form of dissent expressed as ecclesial disobedience. I speak of the way in which it now seeks to define communion. To defend its actions, protect a form of unfettered autonomy and shield itself from meaningful consequences, TEC is seeking, by relegating recognition of belief and practice to the margins of communion life, to redefine what it means to be a communion. If successful, TEC, by coupling its novel definition of communion with the radical autonomy of each province will have managed to effect a sea change in the way in which Anglicanism has understood itself and operated as a communion. If successful, TEC will have made a revolution rather than a reform it considers necessary for the integrity of the communion. Sensing the radical implications of what TEC seems to be up to, there has been considerable push back from around the Communion. In response, TEC not only continues to assert its autonomy, it also aggressively argues that the basis of communion is not so much common belief and practice as it is common mission understood primarily as the alleviation of human suffering and the pursuit of greater social justice. The doctrinal aspect of communion is reduced to a list of talking points, namely, the outline for ecumenical discussion set forth in the Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral. The heart of communion on this view comes down to perpetual dialogue coupled with "mutual ministry," understood largely in moral terms. The problems with this view of communion are numerous and fatal. First, as previously noted, by placing unity in faith at the margins of communion, TEC has taken a stance in direct contradiction to its own history and to the position it has assumed in its ecumenical conversations. Thus, for example, in TEC's own foundational documents and in her conversations with the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches communion is understood first as communion in Christ expressed in common belief, order, and worship. Second, the Quadrilateral, which TEC's defenders hold up as a sufficient standard of faith, was never intended as an adequate statement of Christian belief. It was formulated as an outline by means of which ecumenical conversation could be focused and (it was hoped) moved forward. To say, for example, that the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary for salvation and are the rule and ultimate standard of faith says nothing about the way in which they are interpreted. Again, to say that one believes the Nicene Creed is a sufficient statement of Christian faith says nothing about the way in which its various articles are understood and exposited. In short, TEC proposes as an adequate statement of belief, an agenda for a conversation about adequate belief. This is precisely the position she takes in the councils of the Communion. Communion is a matter of sustained conversation--an extended indaba process. Third, communion is defined largely in moral rather than theological terms. This position follows naturally enough from the reduced role of common belief just set forth. No one wishes to underestimate the importance of shared ministry in service to the poor, but it is hard to see, when push comes to shove, why communion as TEC defines it is communion in Christ Jesus. In the end, Jesus is no more than a good example that might be replicated in many other historical figures. He is more an example of a moral ideal than he is a savior apart from whom we can neither know nor serve God as God wills. To sum up, what does TEC's objection to suffering consequences indicate about the nature of its dissent? For several reasons, TEC's dissent does not seem to be a clear example of ecclesial disobedience. It does not indicate a willingness to suffer consequences as a means both of standing for a firmly held belief and at the same time submitting to consequences as an expression of fundamental loyalty to the community against which it feels compelled to stand. Rather, TEC's attitude and actions suggest more than an intention to stand against a moral view it believes incompatible with the Gospel. Both attitude and action suggest the desire to make the Anglican Communion over into something quite different from what it has been. TEC's ecclesial disobedience apparently aims to change communion into federation or association and in so doing elevate moral commitment over common belief and practice. The form of TEC's dissent suggests revolution rather than reform. The foregoing analysis makes it impossible for me to come to any other conclusion. Nevertheless, I have not undertaken this exercise with the sole purpose of bringing to light the true nature of what TEC's is doing. I have undertaken it because this one example of a crisis that has overtaken the Communion serves to highlight a missing aspect in the present discussion of the Anglican covenant. The Covenant envisions a means of dispute settlement that does not rely upon a centralized authority but upon a process designed to help the Communion reach a common mind when there is a question concerning the "recognition" of faithful belief, practice and worship. Assuming the absence of a centralized authority and the presence of a notion of communion far thicker than that which TEC advocates, how is dissent to occur if the Communion does not recognize an innovation but a province holds that innovation a necessary implication of the Gospel? Diversity within unity can be sustained only if there is a way to dissent that supports what is common yet stands against a form of belief or practice that is seen to betray that common thing (koinon). Had TEC understood the nature and importance of dissent by means of ecclesial disobedience, its actions would have been very different from what they have proven to be. Had the Communion as a whole understood the nature and place of ecclesial disobedience its reaction to what TEC has done would have been more immediate and more coherent. TEC would have understood that, under the provisions of the proposed covenant, it is perfectly free to argue its point and seek to convince its opponents. Had it been successful, the Communion would have been strengthened. Faced with a lack of success, however, it would understand that ecclesial disobedience if accompanied by consequences serves to strengthen communion. Why? When consequences are suffered a powerful witness is made, unity is strengthened, and common life enhanced. Had the Communion and its Instruments understood the nature and importance of dissent by means of ecclesial disobedience, both would understand that negative consequences are necessary to preserve integrity and place boundaries around acceptable forms of diversity. Had the Communion and its Instruments understood the moral tradition of which I have spoken, reducing TEC's status within the councils of the Communion would have been seen as a step that serves to strengthen communion identity"”a step that serves the health of the Communion rather than its fragmentation. It would also have been seen as an alternative to unilateral declarations of broken or impaired communion that serve to further divide the communion. In short when communion is not sustained by a central juridical authority but by mutual recognition and submission within the body of Christ, there must be a means of dissent that coheres with these formative commitments. There must also be a means of addressing dissent that retains communion between a dissenting province and the Communion as a whole. Ecclesial disobedience as set forth above provides both an instrument of dissent and a response that prevents communion from lapsing into constantly dividing segments. How are mutually recognized forms of belief, practice and worship to be sustained within a communion that does not have and does not want a centralized juridical structure? Given Anglicanism's commitment to locally adapted expression of Christian belief and practice, in a world of competing nationalisms a covenant based upon mutual recognition and mutual subjection within the body of Christ is the only way I see to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, a shared understanding of dissent within a covenant relation must be part of the way in which the Communion sustains its common life. Apart from such an understanding, those who dissent will have no wisdom about the proper way to express their dissent, the Instruments and provinces of the Communion will have no wisdom about how to respond, and the Communion as a whole will inevitably devolve into a federation or (worse) a host of fragments that once formed a remarkable example of catholic Christianity. To return to the beginning of this essay, the Archbishop of Canterbury, TEC's Presiding Bishop, the ACO and the Primates will all be involved in the upcoming meeting in Ireland. Whether they admit to it or not, the question of dissent within a communion of churches will rest just under the surface of all their conversations. One can only hope and pray that the issue raised in this essay, the nature of ecclesiastical dissent, will rise to the surface of their conversations and receive the sort of attention that will allow the Anglican Communion to retain its identity, its unity and its integrity. More concretely, the issue is this. What steps can the Primates take when they meet to bring the question of dissent out in the open where it belongs? There is an answer to this question, and it involves all the players that will come to Dublin. First, because it is the Archbishop of Canterbury who "gathers" the Primates and because his office is the primary locus of moral authority within the communion, the answer begins with him. He has authority to set the agenda for the Primates Meeting, and he should announce publically that the issue of TEC's dissent from the moral authority of the Instruments is on the agenda. Further, if as is rumored, the Presiding Bishop has refused a request voluntarily to withdraw, the Archbishop should employ his authority to gather and withdraw her invitation. The authority to gather has been entrusted to him because of the moral authority of his office. Withdrawal of the invitation to TEC's Presiding Bishop is a consequence well suited to defend both the moral authority of an office upon which all Anglicans depend and the "established teaching" of the Communion it is the duty of the holder of that office to articulate. It is also a consequence that would go some distance toward resolving the compromised status on the Standing Committee. If the Presiding Bishop is no longer a participating member of the Meeting of Primates, she cannot represent them on the Standing Committee. Finally, withdrawal of the Presiding Bishop's invitation would help restore a growing lack of trust in the willingness of the Archbishop of Canterbury to address TEC's flaunting both of his moral authority and that of the other Instruments of Communion. Second, the Presiding Bishop can take the opportunity provided by withdrawal of her invitation to make clear at one and the same time both the serious nature of TEC's dissent from the Communion's established teaching and its profound loyalty to the Communion as a vital and necessary expression of catholic Christianity. This she can do by willingly accepting, as TEC's representative, the consequences of its dissent. She can accept publically the right and duty of the Archbishop of Canterbury to act through his gathering authority on behalf of the Communion in ways that preserve its integrity. Third, the Secretary General of the ACO can take this opportunity to state that the ACO is aware of the problems posed for the Communion by the present composition and structural location of its Standing Committee. He can pledge to lend his good offices toward rectifying a widely recognized problem so that the Standing Committee can function within the proposed covenant as an honest agent for resolution of issues with the potential to divide the Communion. Fourth, if the Archbishop of Canterbury withdraws his invitation to TEC's Presiding Bishop and announces that the question of dissent will be on the Agenda of the Dublin meeting, those Primates who have indicated that they do not intend to be present should in fact attend in order to express their support for this particular use of the Archbishop's authority to gather. If, however, he chooses not to use his authority in the way I have suggested, they should attend anyway. They should do so, however, with a clear agenda of their own. First, they can admit to the failure of their own group to assume the "enhanced responsibility" granted by the Lambeth Conference to address crises like those precipitated by TEC. Second, they can insist that ecclesiastical disobedience of the sort practiced by TEC must be addressed through consequences that both make clear to the dissenting party the seriousness of their action and, in so doing, protect the integrity of the Communion as a whole. Third, if the Presiding Bishop indeed attends, they should insist on meeting with other Primates who have similar concerns in a room in which the Presiding Bishop is not present. By doing so they can at one and the same time put on display TEC's disregard for Anglican teaching and preserve the Primates' Meeting as an instrument of true communion. They can, in short, make clear the seriousness of their objection to the decision of the Archbishop of Canterbury to gather the Primate of a province that has rejected the authority of the Communion's Instruments and has done so with a high hand. They can place before the Communion a simple fact. A fork in the road has been reached. One way leads to what the Archbishop of Canterbury has termed a "two track communion." The other leads to a communion in which there are "two integrities" in respect to sexual ethics. To acknowledge the rightful presence of TEC's Presiding Bishop at the Primates' meeting is to ratify a communion with two integrities. To refuse this recognition is to establish a communion with two tracks. True communion in which loyal dissent finds its place demands the two track solution. The upcoming meeting of the Primates provides a God given opportunity for the Primates to take such a step on behalf of the Communion as a whole. One can only hope and pray that they see the challenge that lies before them and that they rise to the occasion.