Archive for the ‘Ecclesiology’ Category

Why the Episcopal Church obsession over property?

Friday, March 19th, 2010

A recent development in the ongoing disintegration of the Episcopal Church prompted me to address something that has been on my mind for a few years.

Quick summary. Problems in the Episcopal Church. Largely disagreements over faith and practice. More traditional Anglicans have been leaving the Episcopal Church. Individuals. Then parishes. Now even a few dioceses.

Here is the problem. The leadership of the Episcopal Church insists that while individuals can leave parishes and dioceses cannot. Which means parishes and dioceses must leave all their money and property behind with the Episcopal Church. Some have tried to keep their money and property. They have been sued. Most of the time they have lost.

Two good websites for description and analysis are Anglican Curmudgeon (focusing on the legal-canonical issues) and Baby Blue Online (focusing on history and testimony).

Now Baptists would never understand this. The money and property belong to the congregation do they not? (Although if a Baptist church splits who keeps what?) According to the leadership of the Episcopal Church the answer is no.

  1. Parishes and dioceses hold the property “in trust” for the Episcopal Church (the national body).
  2. The Episcopal Church has a “fiduciary responsibility” to hold on to that property even if it means suing people.
  3. The Dennis Canon (passed by General Convention some time back although Anglican Curmudgeon asks whether it truly did pass) provides the legal basis and language for #1 and #2.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that the leadership of the Episcopal Church is technically correct. That technically and legally #1 and #3 are correct. That the money and property of a parish or diocese belongs to the national church.

What that does not really answer is why does this matter to them so much? #1 and #3 do not in my opinion lead to #2. #2 does not really explain the behavior of the Episcopal Church leadership.

Why would anyone want to keep property that a congregation mostly paid for? Why would anyone want to keep money that came from the people of that congregation?

Think about it. Would not most normal people with a sense of decency say “Look we are sorry but the money and property belong to us. But tell you what. We understand that you and those who came before you are the ones who gave the money and paid for the property. So tell you what. We will ask you to buy the property from us at fair market value”.

Does that not sound minimally decent? Heck they still have to pay for their church building all over again. They lose all the money they gave. But they can still stay in that property and continue to worship and serve in the name of Christ our God.

But the Episcopal Church leadership has not even granted that much. “No you cannot buy the property from us at fair market value. In fact when we sell your property to someone else we will stipulate that no one at any point in the future can sell that property to you or anyone else like you”.

Which is truly astonishing when you think about it. I sell you something but tell you that at no point in the future can you or anyone sell it to someone that I specify. Makes one wonder if the other person truly owns what they are buying.

A better writer and thinker would phrase this better but hopefully you get the idea. Do not just tell me that the canons say such-and-such and that legally the Episcopal Church gets to keep all money and property. That alone does not explain the motivation. That alone does not explain the extreme efforts to which the Episcopal Church has gone. That alone does not explain the Episcopal Church stipulating that no Anglicans at any point in the future can buy that property.

Why would any normal human being want to keep what someone else gave and paid for? Could they not change the canons? Could they not choose to be generous and let people keep? Could they not choose to be minimally decent and let people buy the property they already paid for?

To quote Johnny Cochran in the famous “South Park” episode 214:

That does not. Make. Sense.

Adherence to the letter of the law does not sufficiently explain what drives the behavior of the leadership of the Episcopal Church.

Oh right. Back to the present.

Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton New York. (Been there many times. About one hour south of Ithaca and Cornell University.) One of the few growing and thriving Episcopal parishes in the diocese heck in the state. They left the Diocese of Central New York. They tried to keep their property. They were sued. They lost.

The family was abruptly evicted from the parsonage. The church building was closed. (People who came looking for the soup kitchen hoping for something to eat had to look elsewhere. That is an important point. I will come back to this.)

The Episcopal Church sold the building to Muslims.

Who paid one third what the Church of the Good Shepherd was offering. (There is some question about whether they had the funds to make that offer but that is not the most important issue here.)

To Muslims.

See those nasty traditional Anglicans do not believe in same-sex relations. They do not believe in women in ministry. Oh wait they do because the rector’s wife was associate pastor so I guess they do believe in women priests. Anyways. To heck with those intolerant jerks.

Which is why we sell the property to Muslims who do not believe in women in ministry and who believe people who engage in same-sex relations should be put to death. Yeah. That makes sense.

Somewhat amusingly a priest in nearby East Aurora defended this in his comments. Wondered why people were so upset that the church building was sold to Muslims. Sounds like prejudice. Sounds like a lack of regard for religious tolerance.

My response:

“Religious tolerance”.

Toward Muslims. Fair enough. I am all for religious tolerance. When Hurricane Katrina came through I headed over to the Islamic center (housing several evacuee families) with a couple Chinese congregants, greeted them in Arabic, asked what they needed, the next day we provided most of what was on their list.

But not toward fellow Anglicans…

Clearly the issue here is not “religious tolerance”.

… Adherence to the letter of the law does not explain this all consuming crusade that overrides all other considerations.

Including religious tolerance. Toward other Christians.

*If selling a property because there are 2 other parishes makes sense [ed - said priest argued that it makes sense to sell the property in a small town like B'hamton because there are 2 other parishes], why not sell another and leave just one? Because B’hamton needs more than one? Well okay. Why not 3? Not seeing the logic there.

What “fiduciary responsibility”?

What I see is pure spite. Some might call it hate.

Is this what it takes to attract young Baptists?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

From one of the coordinators for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Louisiana I received by email a link to a recent opinion piece published through the Associated Baptist Press: “Why 20- and 30-year-olds are leaving the Baptist church” by Carra Hughes Greer who is minister to families with youth at a Baptist church in Georgia.

You can read the whole thing at Associated Baptist Press.

(Let me begin with a couple disclaimers[?]. First – I assume Carra Hughes Greer is an outstanding Christian minister and is a better Christian and minister than I am. Second – I do not disagree with everything she writes.)

Why do we see fewer young Baptists in our churches? (The editor erred when s/he assigned the title “Baptist church”. There is no Baptist church. There are Baptist churches. Which may cooperate to form associations denominations networks and so on.) Not just because they had enough of the Southern Baptist Convention controversies of the 1970’s and 1980’s. But because they are tired of both “harsh” churches and “watered-down” churches.

Her definitions of each are interesting. “Harsh” churches loudly rail against problems in our culture. Greer outlines what one might identify as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell style Baptist Christianity.

“Watered-down” churches care more about maintaining the institution than about engaging the various burning issues of the day. Which issues? Greer offers a sample list:

[H]omosexuality, social justice issues, women in ministry, poverty, environmental concerns, human rights issues, health-care issues, theĀ AIDS epidemic in Africa, orphans in China, monks in Burma, etc. They are eager to have open, honest, almost jaw-dropping, conversations balancing current issues with their faith.

I understand and do not dispute that young Baptists want to discuss such issues in light of their Christian faith.

What troubles me is the apparent dichotomy. If your church takes “conservative” positions on certain theological social and cultural issues then it is harsh. (And note how the article lumps together more extreme with more reasonable “conservative” Christian concerns.) But if your church does not openly discuss certain – pay attention now – other theological social and cultural issues then it is “watered-down”.

Do you see the subtle dichotomy? Discussing education health-care marriage and female pastors is harsh. Discussing social justice women in ministry poverty and the environment is not. Perhaps I misunderstand and the article merely distinguishes between “railing against” and “openly discussing”.

Dichotomies real or imagined aside – so if we do not discuss openly this second list of issues then we are not being missional?

I am trying to imagine what would happen if the congregations I serve – Church of the Nations and University Baptist Church – started talking about abortion homosexuality social justice women in (ordained? vocational?) ministry poverty environmentalism health-care.

I know we have congregants who are much more conservative on theological social cultural political issues. I know we have congregants who are much more liberal. And of course we have congregants who are a mixture of both. Whatever one means by “conservative” and “liberal” in this context.

I know from experience that social cultural and political issues can be far more divisive than theological issues. The Baptistlife.com forum in which I used to participate is hard cold proof of this.

There is some irony here. My views on sexuality are generally “conservative”. Sexual relations between a man and woman who are married to each other is the biblical theological and Christian ideal. And yet in something like sixteen years of ordained ministry not once have I preached against “homosexuality”.

I prefer to focus more on theology. Who is God? Who is Jesus? Who are we? What about our relationship to the creator? What about our relationship to the rest of creation? What about our relationship to other creatures including human beings? What about sin? What about salvation? What about worship? What about prayer?

And yet to be fair in my teaching and preaching sometimes I have touched on social cultural political issues. But I tend to focus on the biblical and theological framework and allow congregants to decide how that plays out in terms of policies and positions.

And perhaps Greer is right. Perhaps we should be “talking about these issues in our Sunday school classes, Bible studies and sermons”. Perhaps I am being a coward for not doing so more. And one might respond “well of course we talk about God and theology and so on – but people will naturally want to balance their faith with these other issues”.

(I remember what happened once when we had a discussion about abortion during Sunday school. Got to the point where one couple said to another couple “you are the kind of people we protect our children from”. I am not making that up. It was not pretty.)

Is the underlying assumption that the purpose of Christian faith is to address these issues? (By the way that right there is a critical question and may be the question we need to ask concerning Greer’s article.) That there is no Christian consensus on how to address these issues? Or that there is a Christian consensus?

Please note these are questions that I have rather than criticisms.

Do we in fact see young Baptists flocking to churches that practice what Greer recommends? How are liberal and moderate Baptist churches doing? Perhaps we should ask how are Episcopal churches doing? Because boy do they ever talk about social cultural political issues.

How are more traditional churches doing? Orthodox Christianity is growing quite nicely in the United States. And although yes they do engage these issues – sometimes taking a “conservative” and sometimes taking a “liberal” stand – they tend to focus much more on worship prayer and theology.

If we focus on God (and our relationship with him and with each other) then do these other issues take care of themselves? Perhaps that is naive and simplistic.

Let me wrap up by addressing a few other points.

She makes fine points about what 20- and 30-year-olds are like. “Not all of them expect loud, Christian rock music, want to wear torn jeans and a T-shirt to church, seek a coffee bar in the worship space or the biggest and brightest LCD screens”. Word.

And this paragraph was especially powerful:

Instead of church politics, they want churches to become missional. They understand the institutional church but desire the simplicity of the early church. They grow weary of time and money spent maintaining the large church grounds, renovating empty Sunday school rooms, installing the latest technology and managing growing numbers of committees. When the church becomes too distracted to be a church on mission, young Christ-followers focus on serving through a para-church or nonprofit organization that is directly meeting the needs of others.

Although again I must ask what do these people think the purpose (mission) of the church is exactly?

I had some difficulty understanding her recommendation that:

[O]ur churches must begin to reflect our changing communities. The ministerial staff must diversify to include people of all ages, races and genders as leaders.

Well sure I suppose if you have a large enough ministerial staff. And how many staff would one need in order to include people of all ages races and genders?

(How many ages?) x (How many races?) x (How many genders?) = (How many staff?)

My last comment is not directed so much to Greer’s article as to Protestantism in general:

For younger generations, what’s at stake is our ability to find ways to relate, engage and work side-by-side with older generations finding common ground on issues of social justice, faith development, worship experiences, etc.

What kind of Christian tradition has to struggle with this at all? In what kind of Christianity do different generations even have to find “common ground” on these issues?

Do you see the problem?

But Greer does raise some legitimate questions and make fine points about 20- and 30-year-old Christians and how we may better relate to and include them in the life and work of the Christian church.

Addendum: Asked my wife what she thought about the article. She thinks I am reading it far too critically.

SERMON – "Priest-hood of the Believer(s)" (Hebrews 5)

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Once again – I normally do not post sermons because I do not think they are much worth posting. But this sermon received strong positive feedback yesterday. -RMW

“Priest-hood of the Believer(s)”
Hebrews 5
Richard M. Wright
Church of the Nations (and University Baptist Church)
20th Sunday Pentecost (B)
October 18, 2009

*********

“People kept driving by. No one stopped to help me”.

Monday evening in this room getting ready for a meeting. Raining raining raining outside. Knock knock knock. A man at the door from the courtyard – never seen him before. We let him in. He begins to explain his situation. Working in the neighborhood. Has a flat tire and needs to get all the way back to his home about thirty minutes away. And expresses some real frustration that he was on the side of Highland Road and people kept driving by and no one stopped to help him.

What did they see?

A stranger? A man with dark skin? Maybe does not take good care of his car? What is he doing in this neighborhood? What is he doing at this church on a dark and rainy evening when many women gather for Bible study? What does he need? What does he want? Is he telling the truth?

What did we see? How did we speak to him? What did we do for him?

Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray since he himself is subject to weakness. That is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the sins of the people.

Our Bible reading for this morning from the book of Hebrews chapter five describes beautifully what a priest is and what a priest does. We talked about this last week. A priest represents the people before God and also represents God before the people. Remember that. Bring people into the presence of God and bring the presence of God to people.

And how does a priest represent God? How does a priest deal with people on behalf of God?

(more…)

For the welfare of this holy church of God and of his servant

Monday, September 28th, 2009
Sanctuary of University Baptist Church

Sanctuary of University Baptist Church

I ask you please to pray for University Baptist Church.

Yesterday morning the senior pastor announced his resignation. He is not moving to another congregation. It was rather a shock. I cannot say a complete surprise because he has faced a steady stream of “discontent” from certain people regarding certain issues. Although it has been particularly rough the last few weeks. It is neither appropriate nor necessary to elaborate.

One thing I will share is that a planned “service of reconciliation” last evening still took place – although with many more present and without the pastor. Many people spoke strongly and positively of the pastor and the difference he had made – or that God had made through him – in their relationship with God.

The church declined to accept the resignation and has urged him to reconsider and to continue serving as our pastor. He did come in at the end of the gathering and said he will think about it and give an answer next week.

Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it
with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt,
purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is
amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in
want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake
of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 816)

Church as visible concrete reality versus(?) overly-realized eschatology

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Ruins of Coventry Cathedral

Ruins of Coventry Cathedral

What and where is the Church? Is there only an ideal Church off somewhere/somewhen in heaven? Or can we see and experience and participate in the Church here and now?

Metropolitan Ware writes:

The Church is accomplished on earth without losing its essential characteristics. There is not only an ideal Church that is invisible and in heaven. This ideal Church exists visibly on earth as a concrete reality. (The Orthodox Church, 242)

This is an important even essential cornerstone of Orthodox Christian ecclesiology.

I do not know to what extent this is compatible with Baptist Christian theology (however one defines that) concerning the church. But in a delightful article Prof Steven Harmon at Samford University explains why the church still needs Baptists. The heart of his position is this:

I’m convinced that the church cannot make progress toward the visible unity for which Jesus prayed (John 17:20-23) unless it receives the distinctive gifts the Baptist tradition has to offer the rest of the church. (Baptists Today, August 2009: 28)

I find it interesting that Prof Harmon’s argument refers to Christian unity – rather than some other goal or principle. We will come back to this. And it is significant the he refers to the “rest of the church” – which is to say that the church is more than (a) the Baptist tradition or (b) local Baptist congregations.

So what are these distinctive gifts that the Baptist tradition offers? The first gift that Prof Harmon describes caught my attention:

I believe one of the gifts that the rest of the church needs to receive from Baptists is our gut-level aversion to overly-realized eschatologies of the church. (That’s theologian-speak for the refusal of Baptists to equate any expression of church life in this present age with the full realization of the kingdom of God.)

The reason this grabbed my attention is that I wonder what is the relationship between this position (aversion to overly-realized eschatologies of the church) and what Metropolitan Ware writes. To what extent is (this particular) Baptist ecclesiology compatible with its Orthodox counterpart. One could focus on the term “fully”. Perhaps Orthodox ecclesiology would concede “look – we are the visible concerete reality of the Church… but we are not the full realization of the kingdom of God”.

I am not a theologian – although I would like to be more of one. I am not sufficiently versed in Baptist or Orthodox theology or in theological method to figure out how these two positions relate to one another. My guess is that Orthodox theology would indeed say “yes we are the full realization” – and then qualify or explain that somehow. My guess is that there are irreconcilable points-of-difference between Baptist and Orthodox theologies of the church/Church. Although I would rejoice were it possible to synthesize and harmonize them.

Please understand I am not trying to pick an argumment with either or to set one against the other. Not at all. I am trying to understand. And to struggle through my own understanding of the Christian church.

One fine brother in Christ wrote in a forum that “Rick is not comfortable being Baptist”. I suggested there might be some truth to that. But hang on a moment.

Prof Harmon in the same piece also writes:

“Real Baptists” are relentlessly dissatisfied with the present state of the church in their pilgrim journey toward the community that will be fully under the reign of Christ.

That sounds like the journey of my own heart. Relentlessly dissatisfied – hopefully in a good way! Indeed at times I feel like “the earliest Baptists… [who] ended their lives on the periphery of the Baptist churches they helped establish”.

Is there a home – ecclesiologically? Or is God content always to travel in a tent?

"Perfect and Continuously Becoming" (SERMON – August 09, 2009)

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Please note – I do not normally post my sermons partly because they are seldom worth posting. But I got strong positive feedback yesterday so decided to share it.

*********

“Perfect and Continuously Becoming”
(Ephesians 4)

Richard M. Wright
Church of the Nations
Tenth Sunday Pentecost (B)
August 09, 2009

*********

What is this? [Indicate piece of bread. Now tear or cut off one corner.] This is bread. It has certain properties and characteristics.

What is this? This too is bread. It has the same properties and characteristics of bread – the whole and the part. [Now tear or cut off a different corner.]

Is this bread? Does this also have the same properties and characteristics of the whole and this different part?

Let me begin with another question. Can something that is perfect change – and still be perfect? If bread is perfect – is this piece of bread also perfect? If I add these pieces together – are they perfect? If I break one of these pieces in two – is it perfect?

Can something that is perfect change – from place to place and/or from time to time?

(more…)

Metropolitan Jonah and Anglicanism as Western Orthodoxy redux

Monday, June 29th, 2009

One of my very first posts on this website was about Anglican Christianity as Western Orthodoxy. That is – if Anglican Christianity either reinvents or rediscovers itself as Western Orthodoxy – as a Western expression of Orthodox Christianity. One does not necessarily need to convert to Orthodox Christianity in order to appreciate that Orthodoxy offers much to Protestant Christianity. Indeed I would argue that Orthodoxy may offer solutions to the many problems which threaten Protestant Christianity – which I would argue is in serious danger of becoming a failed experiment.

Enter Metropolitan Jonah and his presentation before the Anglican Communion of North America 2009 on June 26 – just three days ago.

H/T Fr Cantrell at Apostolicity.

Marketing versus(?) evangelism (or) Centripetal ecclesiology

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Outreach.

Churches agonize about it. Well at least this one does. But listen and observe carefully how people talk about it and attempt to engage in it.

Spend thousands of dollars on slick postcards to the community. “There’s a place for you here!” Where we are. Little map. Schedule of worship and other activities. Colorful picture. Actually quite well done.

Debates about whether and how often to advertize in the local newspaper. Cutting back just a bit. About whether to continue shelling out enormous sums for a presence in the yellow pages.

And oh yeah we got yellow “visitors’ bags”. Full of papers and brochures about different ministries within the church. All very informative. And maybe boring at times.

Recently the discussion has shifted to administration and procedures. How do we handle visitor information? How do we follow up with visitors? Letter. Phone call – not too many or they feel harrassed! Dare we visit?

And recently significant changes in our primary software suite for membership management. Automated Church Systems aka ACS. Not longer hosting it locally but now with their server – we access it remotely. Costs more – but now they are responsible for installations and upgrades and backups. Frankly this represents a dramatic improvement.

Leverage a module within ACS we have never used before. So that an “outreach coordinator” in each Sunday school class can enter visitor information. Coordinate follow up. Report results.

Do you see where this is going?

I have been struck by this curious emphasis on the mechanics of outreach – where outreach means “letting people know about our church such that they come here… and then they want to come back… and join and/or participate… and it would be nice if they contribute financially”.

In a way – evangelism as marketing.

Let me throw something else on the table. Recent discussions about Sunday school. Deep concern about how the numbers have been dropping steadily for the last several years. Meetings with parents of children and youth to find out what they want. Because – and I am sure you have heard this plenty of times – “they are the future”.

Parents with children – and those children/youth – are the “future of the church”.

My ministerial colleagues chafe somewhat against the “the young are the future of the church” talk. Because what does that say about our seniors? They are the past? They are obsolete? And what does it say about our children and youth and hey throw in the youngish families or the pre-seniors? That if they are the future they must by implication not be the present?

I am deeply troubled when churches talk about “outreach” (growing the church numerically) as a marketing/mechanical problem. “If we have the right tools and mechanisms… if you use this software… designate these people to implement certain procedures and processes… if we put together just the right mailings and website… then people will flock to us and join”.

My seminary teacher (yes professor but “teacher” strikes a more affectionate tone) Isam Ballenger taught that there are centripetal as well as centrifugal forces in Christian mission. What does that mean? That yes the church “goes out” to say and do things. We go and tell people about Jesus. We go and serve others in the name of Jesus. This is the centrifugal movement. “Go get them!”

But we often overlook the centripetal movement. To what extent do we evangelize simply by being the church? By our prayer our worship our life in communion with each other and by holy living? Such that people are drawn into the Christian church because they are attracted. And/or – in tension with the centrifugal – once we have “gone out and gotten them” they actually want to stay and be a part of this? This is the centripetal movement. “Bring them in / they will come”.

Congratulations! You have spent thousands and successfully gotten twenty people to visit your church on that groovy Sunday when you have a special worship service. You greeted them. Gave them bags. Got their information. Called and wrote and maybe even visited them.

Why should they come back?

I am not convinced that growing the church numerically is necessarily or always the product of mechanics and marketing and procedures. Because the church is not – or at least it jolly well should not be – another social service agency or another religious social club. “Come join our organization! We are nice people who do nice things! You should be part of this too!”

{WILL FINISH THIS LATER WHEN I GET HOME AND HAVE ACCESS TO A CERTAIN RESOURCE}

In the church the one and the many are not in conflict

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

I was struck a few weeks ago by this what Vladimir Lossky wrote in the chapter “Two Aspects of the Church” in his book The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church:

This [the Church or Christian society] is the only society in which the reconciliation of individual interests with those of the society as a whole does not present an insoluble problem, for the ultimate aspirations of each one are in accord with the supreme end of all, and the latter cannot be realized at the expense of the interest of any. (176)

I am often befuddled? curious? interested in? how churches (here churches = local congregations) make decisions. When one person has an idea or opinion – and they somehow get the rest of the church to support it. Or the rest of the church shuts it down. Or the majority has an idea or opinion – and make the minority live with it. Or the minority kick up enough fuss that it never happens.

What is the power of the individual? the group? what is the relationship between the two?

Lossky seems to say (once you translate him into simpler English) that this is not a problem that cannot be solved in the Church. What one wants is in harmony with what the whole community wants. And what the whole community wants will not be accomplished at the expense of any one person. Of course one will naturally ask how?

Sunday morning I suggested it is when we together seek the “messianic agenda / the agenda of God” which in Mark 8 is presented as the way of the Cross. And in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology as the “condescension” of God. (Not that God is condescending but that God the Second Person of the Trinity came down to be with us and one of us. Here “condescension” is similar to kenosis.)

A team from a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church in South Carolina visited us in October. They are exploring international student ministry and basically wanted to watch learn pray and encourage.

They said one of the things that impressed them most is how we are able to maintain (for the most part) a common focused purpose. We are able to work together even when we have such diverse personalities and opinions in our leadership team. I asked, “You noticed that?” They laughed and replied, “It took us about five minutes”. You know – in our planning meetings we almost never vote on anything. Nearly every decision and plan is formed through discussion and consensus.

Ecclesiology. It merits our attention.

Post-colonial Anglicanism – or Western Orthodoxy here we come

Monday, October 13th, 2008

I am on record as one who argues for a more Orthodox approach to Anglicanism – or for Anglicanism as Western Orthodoxy. That if Anglicanism borrows a page or two or several from the Orthodox playbook – that is (re?)envisions itself as Western Orthodoxy – that may represent a way through the current turmoil. Unity and order without such being imposed from above.

Christianity Today has an interview with recently not-really-deposed Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh in which one encounters the following remarkable exchange:

(CT:) Is a new center emerging within Anglicanism?

(+Duncan:) A post-colonial Anglicanism with a conciliar structure will emerge. The notion that the Archbishop of Canterbury is first among equals is going to fade away. The 21st-century role of the Archbishop of Canterbury will go through the same metamorphosis that the role of the royal family went through in the 20th century. The British Empire is over, and sadly, so is a British-dominated communion. {emphasis mine}

Now one may legitimately argue that reducing the status of the Archbishop of Canterbury as “first among equals” represents a move away from how the Orthodox churches do things. Perhaps. Perhaps not! But do note the reference to a “conciliar structure”. Exactly!

And who would argue that Anglicanism as currently organized is profoundly colonial(ist)? Witness how liberal Episcopalians often speak of their African (and Asian) brothers and sisters. Talk about racist! Talk about colonialist attitudes!

“A post-colonial Anglicanism with a conciliar structure will emerge”. Yup. Another step toward Anglicanism as Western Orthodoxy.