1. Thank you for the second comment. I have to confess I am not entirely on top of this technology, but I seem to have missed your point d. in between the two comments.
2. In regard to your para e I think the issue is probably how one approaches the question. When you say ‘one must be able to recognize the character of one’s Christian brethren in an active way in order to know how to engage common discernment and to sustain it.’ This seems to suggest that there must be some kind of recognition prior to engagement. In one sense that is true but I think there might be a difference of degree involved here. The question of conflict between Christians arises in general over an issue. It may be about remarriage of divorced people, a question that challenged Anglicans in the first half of the twentieth century. The question at the individual level arises because of a common Christina commitment. It seems to me that engagement begins at that most general level. The engagement may lead to better understanding which may lead to a willingness to continue the engagement because of some level of agreement about such things as how the question is to be approached or the kinds of ways in which you think about such issues as a Christian. A conversation may go a certain way in this process with my Roman Catholic neighbour or colleague and no further if there is no joint action envisaged.
3. However if it is a matter of someone who is a member of my church and we are going to be involved in marriages in some way, such as preparing people who come to the church to be married, then the conversation will need to proceed to a point where such joint action can sensibly be enterprised. That could happen either because we agreed on the substantive issue, or we agreed that the particular joint action did not require us to agreed entirely on the substantive issue but enough to make this kind of joint action possible. If we were to be clergy involved in conducting the service of matrimony in the church then there would be more general debate because in some way the clergy carry out that task as representatives of the church. Marriages historically have been part of the liturgy and canons have made it clear that this activity is subject to appropriate wider church agreement. In general the extent of church agreement will depend on the character of the activity. Some things will need to win parish wide agreement, others diocesan and some others provincial. These arenas are reasonably well covered in provincial constitutions and there is some difference among provinces as to how they treat some questions.
4. Where a new issue is being considered it seems to me that the issue itself is explored in the first instance to see how it might affect relationships or cooperation at various levels and degrees of extent. Within existing church structures some areas are clearly designated as belong within those structures and that is where discussion takes place.
5. In the case of issues between provinces there is no such agreement on structures within which such engagement might take place. There are arrangements for the purpose of consultation, but not much more. That is the history of the Lambent Conference and the constitution of the ACC. When therefore some thing new comes up which implies some element of joint action then the issue should appropriately be the first focus of engagement. The question of how the issue affected joint action or common association, which is a different matter, then that would arise within engagement on the issue. I think the problem with the covenant is that it reaches a conclusion on framework of engagement or of the implications of the issue for future joint action or association are pre-judged. That is the sort of thing I had in mind in sections 20-24.
6. In regard to your para f. I quite agree, though I have to confess to a certain weariness about such a broad based discussion since it would be so difficult to engage in without all sorts of political and other considerations coming to bear. It is a good question Ephraim, but I think I prefer to take a question at a time.
Posts
1 comments:
Thanks, Bruce.
Here is the missing point d. from my previous comment:
d. On your 15: it seems to me as if you present the alternatives here as too much of a zero-sum game. Your use of the term “provincial responsibility” makes sense, but this precisely points to the impossibility of separating out internal and external relations, however one wishes to define these for the sake of pragmatic need.
Two reiterations of my previous points in response:
First, the inter-provincial realities of a globalized Anglicanism are pressed upon us in ways that go far beyond the expansion of conections by a few elite (i.e. "bloggers" and "travellers" as you note): we now have Anglican clergy moving regularly and in a far-flung way all around the world and ministering within different Anglicanc hurches on a regular basis; local mission groups; money and support; etc., etc.. The question of recognition is absolutely unavoidable, from simple matters of transferable qualifications, to theological compatibility, to the accepability of monetary contributions, to the sharing of eucharistic communion at Anglican gatherings.
This reality cannot simply be decoupled from the question of figuring out and engaging the matter of the "substance" of this or that important issue. Obviously, there is a chicken-and-egg matter of conflict resolution here: certain issues prove divisive; we have to discuss them; we can't discuss them helpfully because we can't engage properly; we can't engage properly because the divisive issue has undermined recognizability; etc..
The Covenant does indeed start afresh on this score by establishing a mutually shared starting point regarding process, that is founded on accepted recognizability. I don't see how this is avoidable under the circumstances. And, in fact, it seems to cohere with your argument in your second response, to the extent that you seem to acknowledge the need for "structures" by which to deal with conflicted issues.
I would note that the doctrinal commission under Stephen Sykes DID try to deal with the sexuality matter several years ago, and simply came up with an acknowledgement that they could not agree amongst their membership. Why the process was allowed to come to this conclusion is another matter, but I think that it indicated the inadequacy path thus far laid out for such issues within the Communion.
Without getting into your previous posts -- though they certainly deserve to be engaged substantively -- I am not convinced a.) that the way you have described the obgligations of dealing with the integrity of "sub-traditions" properly reflects the inherent corruption of all (or at least the vast majority of) such ecclesial subtraditions, not because there is something inherently corrupt about the theoretical existence of such sub-traditions but because there is something inherently corrupt about their actual historical emergence, and hence they are all and must be viewed as being up for grabs in the face of the demands of the Gospel (hence my sense of the impossibility of disconnecting possible solution to current problems from the larger matter of e.g. the Covenant's evangelical integrity as a whole; and b.) that the Covenant's way of going about matters is in fact "unAnglican". But I think on the latter we read our tradition very differently, my own reading highly colored by my historical understanding of the rise of Christian "sub-traditions"!
Many thanks for your continued and serious presentation of these matters, Bruce.
Post a Comment