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The Trials of Phillips Brooks
By R. William Franklin

From Episcopal Times of the Diocese of Massachusetts

www.diomass.org

A Massachusetts historian tells how  conservative opposition to Phillips Brooks election as Bishop broke the heart of the greatest preacher of his time.

The election and consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire has been treated by many members of the Anglican Communion as an unprecedented controversy. Similarly, Episcopalians in the Diocese of Massachusetts with memories will recall that when Barbara Harris was elected bishop suffragan of Massachusetts in 1988, it was said by some that the Anglican Communion would be fractured forever.  Those with very long memories indeed will know that the most controversial confirmation of an Episcopal election in New England was not in 2003 or in 1988 but in 1891, when Phillips Brooks was elected bishop of Massachusetts.

Phillips Brooks, Rector of Trinity Church in Boston, was elected bishop of this diocese by an almost unanimous vote of the Diocesan Convention on April 30, 1891.  Brooks was descended from two old and distinguished New England families who had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th century.  The stories of the Brooks and Phillips families were intertwined with the venerable institutions of this region:  with the founding of Andover Academy, with the founding of Andover Divinity School, with Harvard, with the Boston Latin School, with the First Church of Boston and with St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston.  Brooks was most famous for moving Trinity Church to Copley Square and for standing behind the building of the current church designed by H. H. Richardson.
 
He was related through family to Boston leaders in many spheres of activity, and he was beloved by the population of this state, partly because he was the author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and also because he was the greatest preacher of his day.  Moreover, he was deeply loved because of his friendship with the leaders and people of many denominations of the region, from Unitarian and Congregationalist to Roman Catholic.  When he was elected, the Unitarians and the Congregationalists said, “At last we have a bishop of all of Massachusetts to whom we can look for leadership.”

And that was a problem.  Though loved in Massachusetts, the confirmation of Phillips Brooks’s election by the other bishops of the Episcopal Church took longer than any process of confirmation in our church, then or now. 

Then, as now, a bishop’s election had to be confirmed by a majority of the standing committees and then a majority of the bishops of the church.  Usually this process took only a few weeks.  In Brooks’s case, though a majority of the 52 standing committees quickly affirmed his election, the agreements of the 52 bishops took more than two months to come in.  After weeks of a vicious campaign in the secular press and the church press, and a pamphlet war between church parties, a majority of bishops finally telegraphed the presiding bishop their positive votes in early July 1891, and on July 11 the presiding bishop announced to the world that Phillips Brooks would be consecrated as bishop of Massachusetts in Boston on October 15, 1891.  In the end 30 percent of the bishops of the Episcopal Church voted against Brooks, refused to attend his consecration and were reluctant to acknowledge his authority.

What was the issue that bothered the opposing bishops?  It was Brooks’s views on bishops, the apostolic succession and the validity of ministry in the American Christian denominations without bishops.  Brooks believed that episcopacy was the best form of church government., but he regarded denominations without bishops as still part of the one church of Jesus Christ.  Though he was sure that bishops are the successors of the apostles, he also thought that all Christians, by virtue of their Baptism, are the successors of the apostles, and he was reluctant to pass negative judgment on other denominations that were without the institution of episcopacy.  He said, “We know where the Church is.  It is not for us to say where the Church is not.”

The Catholic Revival within the Episcopal Church in the 19th century had made the identity of the bishop as successor of the apostles—and the consequent invalidity of non-episcopal churches—a core definition of the Episcopal Church’s identity in the United States.  The Anglo-Catholics were convinced that the Episcopal Church possessed an “apostolic order” in its bishops that was key to its mission.  To deny this would lead to disaster. 

And so it was within the Anglo-Catholic party of the Episcopal Church that opposition to Brooks arose.  A campaign to discredit him began, in which both the secular and the church press were willing accomplices.  It was said that the Nicene Creed was not recited at Trinity Church, that Brooks had participated in an interdenominational service in a Congregational church on a Good Friday, that he had invited Unitarians to the Lord’s Table, that he himself had not been baptized in the name of the Trinity.

Of  Brooks’s election George F. Seymour, the former dean of the General Theological Seminary in New York City, wrote:  “Satan has now insinuated himself in the very stronghold of Christianity, and sought to enter into a truce with its leaders and its militant hosts.”  An anonymous circular was sent to the bishops saying a crisis had been reached in the history of the church, a fundamental question of maintaining the faith pure and undefiled had been raised and no one could foresee “the horrible consequences if Dr. Brooks were confirmed as a bishop.”

A Roman Catholic priest, formerly a Baptist minister, published a pamphlet that said that by electing Brooks “the Episcopal Church is yielding to the rationalistic and agnostic tendencies of the age to a deplorable extent….the surging tide of infidelity will soon destroy it.”

In fact, Brooks’s views of the apostolic succession and of our relations with other denominations eventually did win the day.  They stand behind the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, our key ecumenical charter confirmed by every General Convention of the Episcopal Church since the 1890’s, and formulated by Brooks’s Massachusetts friend William Reed Huntington.  Brooks’s regard for the ministerial authenticity of non-episcopal churches has now been realized concretely  in our full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Yet Brooks’s victory was won at great personal cost.  He was humiliated by the press campaign.  He refused to acknowledge it by never uttering one public word of self-defense.  Brooks remained consistently silent through the 10 weeks of the negative campaign, explaining nothing, giving no answers to defend his positions, making no apologies, no pledges.  But privately he was devastated:  “We have talked of the old days of witch trials and torture chambers and patted ourselves on the back and said—those things were in the days of our fathers.  But scratch us a little and the medieval temper comes freely back to the surface.”

Worn down, he was dead 14 months after his consecration.  As the news of his passing spread, the city of Boston came to a standstill.  For in a somber generation, bowed down by the terrible losses of the Civil War, he offered Christian hope, his own enchantment with Scripture and the possibility that people of faith might stand together.  It is through such vision, and at such a cost, that Christian progress is made. 

R. William Franklin is associate for education at Trinity Church in Boston and dean  emeritus of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University.

What’s Really at Stake: The Current Troubles in Perspective

What’s Really at Stake: The Current Troubles in Perspective

On January 3^rd, 250 CE the newly proclaimed Emperor Decius entered the temple of Jupiter in Rome and made an offering to this the supreme god of all the Empire. From that day forward all subjects of the Roman Empire were required to do the same and to receive a receipt called a libellus, proving they had complied with this new law. Thus began a year of unprecedented and systematic attack on the Church. Within weeks, two bishops refused to make the sacrifice and were killed. Others went into hiding, the people panicked and many, including bishops, clergy, and lay people made the sacrifices to save their lives, thus repudiating their Christian faith. This, of course, was exactly what the Emperor hoped would happen. Though the persecution was over within the year, the Emperor had gotten his wish: he had smashed the Church. The body of Christ had been ripped apart. Christianity quickly split into two parts: the one containing the few who had not committed the sin of apostasy, the other made up of all those who, under great duress, had sinned and offered the sacrifice to the roman god. The two groups are named for their respective positions: ‘rigorist’ for those claiming to have maintained holiness in the face of the persecution (a small minority) and ‘laxist’ for those who, while acknowledging their sin, sought forgiveness and restoration to the faith (the vast majority). The controversy raged on for fifty years, fueled by the rigorist’s refusal to associate with those who had given in to the emperor. After a time it seems that the rigorist party coalesced in and around the North African city of Carthage and the laxist party was practically everyone else.

Then in 303 CE things got even worse! Another emperor of Rome , Diocletian, tried his hand at stamping out the Church. This time the order was that Christians hand over all copies of Scripture in their possession. Some complied; others handed over books they claimed were Christian scriptures but which were actually the ancient equivalent of say, shop manuals. A modern example might be something like the “Windows ’95 Bible”. Pretty clever, actually. It probably helped that the soldiers who collected the books likely could not read. The majority had, shall we say, played the Emperor’s game and handed over their “bibles” while a small minority had managed once again to avoid the persecution. By now, the two factions were further delineated: the rigorists were known as the Donatists, from the name of one of their bishops and the majority was known as the Catholics. (And the whole mess would eventually come to be known as the Donatist controversy.)  This amounted to two competing notions of what it meant to be a Christian. By now this should be beginning to sound familiar if you have been following recent Episcopal Church events.

What then, was the controversy? Put simply it was this. For the Donatists, the Church’s holiness depended upon the personal holiness of its members. On the practical level this meant sacraments administered by a priest or bishop who was not of the rigorist/ Donatist party were invalid. Personal holiness had been irreversibly destroyed by the sin of apostasy. (The Roman authorities had won!). And since the Church’s holiness (in the Donatist view) depended on the collective holiness of its members the non-Donatist church was no Church at all! Hence the refusal by the Donatists even to associate with the majority. The Donatists had anathematized those who did not live up to their rigorous standards. To anathematize someone is to condemn them to damnation for sin; in matters of the faith, you do not exist. It is much stronger than excluding someone from the sacraments, which is called excommunication–withholding communion for disciplinary reasons (see The Book of Common Prayer, p. 409).

The Catholic majority, in response, argued first that the Donatists were committing the sin of schism (dividing the body of Christ). St. Augustine , on the side of the Catholic majority, weighed in that the Church’s holiness was Christ’s holiness not that of its individual members. The Church, then, was not an exclusive assembly of the personally good but rather the inclusive body of Christ accounted as holy by Christ’s own holiness. (In other words, we do not come into the church accompanied by a round of applause but rather in profound humility that Christ would love and accept a sinner like me.)

Augustine went on to make it clear that it is Christ who is the sole giver of God’s grace. It is Christ, who alone is without sin, who extends his love and forgiveness to us.

This was a sea change in the history of the church. It solidified what we might call the ‘big tent’, i.e., catholic understanding of the Church. This is what it means to be catholic in contrast to sectarian (‘little tent’), the vision of the church characterized by an ‘us vs. them’, ‘you’re in or you’re out’ mentality.[1] The Donatist position was finally condemned as heresy at a conference at Carthage in 411 CE. However, the belief that the Church is an exclusive assembly of the personally pure has repeatedly rekindled, burned brightly for a time and then faded. One could cite the Puritan controversies of 17^th century England brought to our shores in 1630 as one example. There have been many others.

Richard Hooker, the greatest of the founders of Anglicanism (1554-1600), said this, “Pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian Religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.”

For us, which will it be? Will we continue to be “an inn where all are received joyously”? Or will we draw into ourselves refusing the company of all but the like-minded, excluding those who do not agree with us? To my dismay, the latter has already begun in some places in our Church.

(The Rev.) Christopher A. Smith

November, 2003

A short Diatribe on Anglican Biblical Interpretation                                     The Rev. Michael Russell

Holy Scriptures are being bandied about a great deal in this current conflict, especially by people who claim to be traditionalists and so-called “orthodox Anglicans.”  Homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says its wrong and that’s it, goes their pronouncements. They stab their fingers at Leviticus 18, 20, and Romans 1 crying, “See, See!”  In actuality their manner of using the Bible and the authority they suppose they give to it are far more akin to the Calvinism Mr. Hooker opposed, than to anything ever Anglican.

They are fond of rallying around the “plain truth” of the Scriptures without apparently having any depth of knowledge in the plain truth of 400+ years of Anglican heritage with respect to careful Biblical Interpretation.  We who disagree with the violence they thus do to Scripture have no further to look than the Elizabethan Divine and foundational theologian of Anglicanism, Richard Hooker.

Hooker addressed the Calvinists of his day, usually called Presbyterians or Puritans, denying repeatedly in the course of the Laws their claim that the entire rule of one’s life and of Church polity must be found in Scripture and thus anything not positively commanded by God was sin.   He not only says that they are wrong in that claim, but they do not actually believe or practice it themselves. Moreover, he is quite comfortable with The Law of Reason, written into our human flesh, functioning very highly in the arena of knowing between good and evil.

In Chapter 8 of Book II he comes to discuss the truth in the matter.  In essence he says this:

1)       Scripture is perfect for the purpose for which it was created: to teach us those things necessary for salvation;

2)       People ( Rome ) err when they narrow this perfection of Scripture by suggesting that Church Traditions must be added to scripture in order for people to discover that is necessary for salvation.

3)       But other people err in widening too far the scope of Scripture’s purpose by arguing that it contains ALL necessary things and that ALL things in scripture are necessary for salvation.  This assertion he will dismember in books III and IV.  He concludes book II:

“…so we must likewise take great heed, lest in attributing unto Scripture more than it can have, the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverently esteemed.”

Book III goes on to carefully parse through the Calvinists assertions.  But most interesting to this are chapters X and XI, which deal with the mutability of God’s laws and the capacity of the church to change or add to them.  He writes, “The nature of every law must be judged of by the end for which it was made, and by the aptness of things therein prescribed unto the same end.” (III.X.1)

For a law to continue to be in force its original end must still be possible and the means to that end must still be effective to achieve it.  If either of those no longer pertains, then laws may be changed.  He goes on further in Book X to make a distinction between the moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws of the Hebrew Scriptures, acknowledging the perpetual authority of the moral laws, but the mutability of the ceremonial and judicial. 

“Aha!” cry the Calvinists, “Our point exactly.”  Except for the fact that Mr. Hooker confines the category of moral law to the 10 Commandments, all the rest in the Torah being ceremonial or judicial.  In Chapter X section 6 he lays out the reason they are different and in X.9 gives the narrow end of the ceremonial and judicial laws, “Unto their (the Jewish people) so long safety, for two things it was necessary to provide; namely, the preservation of their state against foreign resistance, and the continuance of their peace within themselves.”

And thus the Levitical injunctions against homosexuality, which the Calvinists would have us believe were chiseled in the same stone as the 10 Commandments, aren’t.  In fact they were created for the end described in the paragraph above and that end, no longer pertaining means that we are no longer bound by those laws except insofar as our capacity to Reason leads us to believe that they would be for the good.  And about that there is obvious disagreement, but not authoritative Scriptural injunction.

This distinction, between the moral and ceremonial and judicial laws is included in Article VII of the 39 Articles.  Moral laws we must keep the other we may observe or not as Reason teaches.  The Right Reverend Gilbert Burnet in his early 18^th century “Exposition of the 39 Articles of the Church of England” acknowledges the same distinction in his discussion of Article VII.  Bishop Burnet would expand the moral laws to include derived corollaries (he is quite firm for example that divorce is perpetually forbidden) he nevertheless continues the interpretive framework established by Mr. Hooker.  He writes:

There are two orders of moral precepts; some relate to things that are of their own nature are inflexibly good or evil, such and truth or falsehood; whereas other things by a variety of circumstances may so change their nature, that they may be either morally good or evil:… (p. 130)

Now I suspect that as a man of his time and from reading the passage around this quotation Bishop Burnet would have shared the opinion of our Calvinists on homosexuality.  Yet he maintains even here the distinction found in Mr. Hooker, which makes this an issue for reasoned judgment of time and circumstances rather than solemn pronouncement that a perpetual evil is at hand. Burnet’s “Exposition,” by the way was the text on the 39 Articles that The Most Reverend William White included in the curriculum for Theological Studies adopted at the General Convention of 1803.

In sum then, our present crop of Calvinists continue to trouble the church as they always have these 403 years since the death of Mr. Hooker by attributing too much to the scope of Scripture.  And just as Mr. Hooker did then we must do now, which is to rejoice in the hermeneutic he developed and learn again from him how to discern what kind of things things are, what are the ends for which they were created and what are the apt means for achieving them.  In doing this we can further agree with Mr. Hooker in his Learned Discourse on Justification, that the foundation of faith, that which is necessary for salvation, is the simple affirmation that Jesus is Lord that we made on 2 Epiphany when reading I Corinthians 12:3.

Please share this as you see fit.

Michael Russell, Rector

All Souls, San Diego

(The greatest shame of our nodding our hats to modernism is that we stopped making Mr. Hooker basic reading in seminaries long about the 1920’s:  before the Folger Edition began being published in the 1980s and my company republished the Keble edition in 1994 there has not been a major edition available in the U.S. since the Everyman edition in 1925.)

Why ‘Via Media’

Albany Via Media has had some requests to explain what "Via Media" means. Our November 5 Statement following the consecration of the Right Reverend Gene Robinson as a Bishop in the Episcopal Church was intended to model the Via Media approach. This brief companion statement of theology is intended to provide some elucidation to the Anglican approach called the "Via Media", Latin for the "Middle Way."

The Via Media, "In historic terms . . . was John Donne’s phrase . . . whose heritage dates back to Aristotle’s "golden mean." The Anglican term Via Media is the "label often adopted in characterizing Anglican approaches to matters of morality and ethics" (Theodore McConnell, p. 141, The Anglican Moral Choice).

To quote Henry McAdoo in McConnell’s essay, The Via Media as Theological Method,

Perhaps the most important thing about Hooker is that he wrote no Summa and composed no Institutes, for what he did was to outline method. What is distinctly Anglican is then not a theology but a theological method (The Anglican Moral Choice, Paul Elmen, Ed., p. 142).

Richard Hooker understood that an Anglican Church maintains as broad, inclusive, and non-judgmental a church polity and religious affirmation as possible by resisting temptation to judge and exclude those whose opinions and practices differ from ours in important but non- essential matters. The Via Media as theological method, therefore, incarnates a Godly way of treating those with whom each of us disagree. A Via Media method recognizes that the truth of one generation might be understood differently in the next. In humility, Anglicans give their theological opponents the respect that comes from reading history, knowing that one ideology’s devil is another movement’s martyr. In so doing we create room for each other, learning from each other, in communion around God’s table. We hope to keep this vision of the Via Media method alive in the Diocese of Albany and in the Episcopal Church.

A Via Media approach to the interpretation of Holy Scripture will hold that faithful Christians everywhere will interpret identical passages differently, with respect to place, history, culture, experience, education and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Differences within interpretation of Holy Scripture and the right to dialogue about those differences was won with the blood of Anglican martyrs like Cranmer, Ridley and Lattimer in the early years of the English Reformation. They read Aristotle, applying the concept of the Golden Mean that, while certainty is attainable in mathematics, it is less likely in philosophy or theology. That is why Richard Hooker held that tradition, reason and experience were so critical in Biblical interpretation: the level of hermeneutical (interpretive) certainty is reduced by our humanity. Even enhanced by the Imago Dei in each of us, we still, when trying to discern the nature of God and his will for us, "See through a glass darkly" as our first theologian, St. Paul, reminded us. We believe that God’s desire is for his church to remain in communion and dialogue, in times of conflict and disagreement over his will for us in his kingdom on earth.

PLUS ÇA CHANGE, PLUS LA MÊME CHOSE

by Fr. John-Julian,  OJN

In 1428, at the direction of a General Council of the western Catholic Church, the bones of a British heretic were dug up from consecrated ground, burned, and thrown into the river. That man’s name was John Wycliffe. He had been a Don at Oxford and originally a famous Scholastic philosopher. However, by the mid-14^th century, his radical anti-clerical writings began to cause trouble. In 1381 his work was condemned by the University and he was  forbidden to teach. He refused to submit, however

In May of 1382, Pope Gregory XI dispatched a bull to the University demanding that Wycliffe be silenced, and that he be sent to Rome for judgment. Wycliffe refused to go, and he was turned out of the college. Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury convened the famous Blackfriars Council of the British Church in 1382 which again condemned Wycliffe’s teachings (and, by the way, provided the first definitions of heresy in the English Church ) . Even though he had died in 1384, there were further condemnations of Wycliffe’s teachings by councils and synods in 1388 and 1397.

  Finally, the General Council of the Catholic Church meeting at Constance in 1415 condemned over 200 of Wycliffe’s propositions and ordered his body removed from sacred ground

Among the many Wycliffite propositions condemned repeatedly by the Catholic Church for nearly a quarter of a century were the following:

#4. “If a bishop or priest is living in mortal sin, he does not ordain, not consecrate nor perform, nor baptize.”

#15. “No one is a civil master, no one a prelate, no one a bishop, as long as he is in mortal sin.”

II

It will be noticed that the theological dynamics behind both of these heretical propositions are virtually identical with the propositions maintained by the schismatic Donatists of North Africa in the 4^th centur

The Donatists were rigorists and proto-Puritan heretics who refused to accept Caecilian as Bishop of Carthage because his consecrator, Felix of Aptunga, had surrendered the Christian holy books to the pagan magistrates during the Dioceltian persecutions. Felix was therefore considered to be in mortal sin, and the Donatists maintained that Sacraments administered by someone in mortal sin were not valid; hence the consecration of Caecilius was invalid in their eyes. When they heard of his consecration, seventy of the dissenting bishops gathered in Carthage and formed an “alternative synod”, declared Caecilian invalidly consecrated, and excommunicated him.

The Donatists then set up a parallel jurisdiction to the Catholic Church in Africa, and their convictions went so far that Christians who joined them had to be re-baptized, since even baptism administered by the “impure” Catholics was considered invalid (in itself, a second heresy which we need not go into here).

To deal with these issues, the Emperor Constantine appointed a Commission of five Gallican (i.e., disinterested) bishops headed by Melchiades, the Bishop of Rome . Ten bishops from each side of the controversy presented their cases, and the Commission decided unanimously against the dissidents. Further, Donatist appeals to the Synod of Arles (in 314) and to the Emperor in Milan (in 316) were unsuccessful. Persecution of the Donatists by the Empire began but was irregular until the early 5^th century.

The major theological opponent of the Donatist heresy was, of course, St. Augustine of Hippo. After long negotiations, he finally arranged a massive conference to be held before the Imperial Magistrate Marcellinus in Carthage in 411. Present were 286 Catholic bishops and 279 Donatist bishops. Before beginning, the Catholic bishops pledged themselves, if defeated, to up  their own sees; and, if they were successful, to recognize the Donatists as proper bishops asking only that they swear allegiance to the Catholic Church. The conference lasted for three days, and at the end the Magistrate decided unequivocally in favor of the Catholics. A final appeal to the emperor confirmed Marcellinus’ decision, and the schismatics were denied all civil rights and forbidden on pain of death to hold assemblies.

 Augustine (and the Catholic faction) maintained strongly that the moral unworthiness of an ordained minister had no effect on the validity of the Sacraments administered by him, since the true minister of those Sacraments was Christ. And this has been the official doctrine of the Church Catholic ever since — much to the relief and comfort of many of us less-than-worthy ministers!

And the Church of England has also further clarified the matter in Article XXVI of the Articles of Religion “Of the Unworthiness of the Minister, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments” where it is declared that “…Neither is the effect of Christ’s ordinance taken away by [ministers’] wickedness, nor the grace of God’s gift diminished…which be effectual, because of Christ’s institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.” And an admonition is added that “evil Ministers” be “accused by those who have knowledge of their offenses; and finally, being found guilty, by just judgment be deposed.”

The universal Catholic Church, the Church of England and the Episcopal Church have repeatedly made clear that the unworthiness of a minister does not in any way invalidate his/her ministerial function.

III 

I apologize for the lengthy historical background, but it is essential to serve as background for the theological point I wish to make. 

The Episcopal Church is wrenched and twisted about these days ostensibly because of (1) the confirmation by General Convention, 2003, of the election of an active gay man to be Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of New Hampshire, and (2) the recognition by the same Convention that the blessing of same-sex unions is “within the common bounds” of life in the Episcopal Church. If you ask almost any Episcopalian what causes the current conflicts in the Church, and they will declare the two actions of the General Convention to be the cause. 

But that is not so! While those actions of General Convention may have been taken to be the motive for the acts of schismatic dissidents, the fact is that it is the practice of the Donatist and Wycliffite heresy by those dissidents which is the problem. Disagreement or disenchantment with any actions of General Convention has never been a cause for much more than a ripple on the surface of the Episcopal Church. There are literally dozens of Convention actions in the last fifty years which upset some people, disturbed some consciences, and led some few to leave the Episcopal Church. And the Church pretty generally quieted down after each of these, with some good Episcopalians simply agreeing to disagree.

What is different this time? What is different is that dissidents who disagree with the actions of General Convention have declared invalid the ministries of any bishops and other clergy (a) voted to confirm Bishop Robinson’s election at Convention or who (b) participated in his consecration. They say, in effect, that those who supported or participated in what they deem to be immoral acts are themselves made immoral by that support — and that the sacramental function of bishops deemed to be immoral are invalid.

This is a not-very-subtly disguised and very unmistakable expression of the repudiated and solidly condemned heresies of the 4^th century Donatists and the 14^th century Wycliffe which we describe above. The Catholic Church (and especially the Church of England) has repeatedly, firmly, and unequivocally condemned such a belief as incontrovertible heresy.

Presumably, then, those bishops and others who disagree with the Convention actions and the consecration of Bishop Robinson, may not within the Catholic tradition or within the Anglican tradition declare those with whom they disagree to be invalid or defective ministers. 

And it is this choice of heresy on the part of the dissidents which has caused the trouble in the Church. Disagreement over Convention actions has been frequent and common, but previously no dissidents have resorted to promulgating this neo-Donatist heresy. There has to our knowledge never been any demand or mandate that everyone in the Episcopal Church must accept the non-canonical actions of the General Convention. Loyal opposition has been entirely and appropriately common. There has been no requirement that any parish call a gay priest or any diocese elect a gay bishop. There has been no mandate that all parish clergy must provide a blessing for same sex unions. These are NOT the issue: the issue which threatens schism is the constantly repudiated heresy of neo-Donatism which the dissidents have embraced. And no one nor any institution has ever required that of them; it has been a free (and erroneous) choice on their parts.

Differences over General Convention resolutions, variant readings and interpretations of Holy Scripture, controversies over the locus of authority in the Church, are all “old news” in the Church — but the discrediting and “invalidating” of clergy who have acted both in keeping with their consciences and with the legal and properly-established political structures and processes of the Episcopal Church, that is new (or, rather, that is something very old, a very old heresy, disclaimed by the Church  since the 4^th century). And that error/heresy is the root of the fragmenting in the Church today.                                                                           

by Fr. John-Julian,  OJN

DIFFERENCES

by Father John-Julian, OJN

One of the real joys of a traditional monastic life in the Episcopal Church is that one is to some degree insulated from the noisy political ruckuses which characteristically (and ubiquitously) rage back and forth across the Church. But sometimes a reflec­tion “from the sidelines” may have some value.

The Episcopal Church I have lived in for over seventy years and where I have served as a priest for almost fifty years has been astoundingly resilient and accepting of an almost unbelievably wide variety of theological beliefs, liturgi­cal practices, moral convictions, and ecclesiastical attitudes. The Episcopal Church has been able to contain all these diversities and differences without ma­jor schism (although not always without some personal pain or symbolic bloodshed) because of the universal commitment to the deepest theological verities, to the Church’s open and democratic processes of governance, to the Creeds, and to the Book of Common Prayer.

Look, for a moment, at this long (but still partial) list of some of those antithe­ses which in my own experience and knowledge we Episcopalians have known. (Some are dated and gone-by, but some are with us still.)

“Protestant” vs. “Catholic”

High Church vs. Low Church

Sunday Eucharist vs. Sunday Morning Prayer

Missal vs. Prayer Book

Chasuble vs. Surplice-and-stole

Auricular Confession vs. General Confession

Baptismal Washing vs. Baptismal Immersion

Intinction vs. Receiving Chalice

Gloria first vs. Gloria last

Seven Sacraments vs. Two Sacraments

Clerical collar vs. Coat-and-Tie

Pro-slavery vs. Anti-slavery

Open Communion vs. Closed Communion

Communicate the baptized vs. Communicate only the confirmed

Invocation of the Saints vs. Saints as models only

Prayers for the Departed vs. mere remembrance of the Dead

Crucifixes vs. Empty crosses

Hell exists vs. there is no hell

Abortion vs. Anti-abortion

War vs. Anti-war

Republican vs. Democrat

Gender Limitations vs. Gender Equality

Racial Separation vs. Racial Integration

Capital Punishment vs. Life in Prison

Charismatic Pentecostalism vs. Liturgical Propriety

Pro-BCP 1979 vs. Pro-BCP 1928

Rite 1 vs. Rite 2

All ordained vs. only males ordained

ECUSA/ELCA Union vs. ECUSA Exclusivity

Pro-Israel vs. Pro-Palestinian

Assisted dying vs. no Euthanasia

Crucifixion as Substitutionary Sacrifice vs. Crucifixion as Participatory Sacrifice

Baptismal Regeneration vs. No Regeneration

Filioque Clause vs. No Filioque Clause

and either

Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation or Transignification or

Receptionism or Memorialism to define Real Presence.

All of these contraries are now or have been powerfully divisive elements in the life of the Church, and some of them have involved conflict over very serious, very fundamental core theological doctrines or truly essential core practices. Disagreement over one or two of these issues resulted in a few people individually leaving the Episcopal Church, and some of these matters have brought more people into the Church. But clear, competitive schism has NEVER been the result.

But today we face the possibility of a much more organized and high profile schism, facilitated initially by the illegitimate and illicit ordination of renegade Episcopal priests by alien bishops and Primates, and now furthered by bishops whose noses have been put out of joint by the fully proper and totally legal actions of General Convention.

And what has been the issue this time around? Has it been any of the several dozen issues listed above — or some equally significant apostasy from some piv­otal theological core foundation stone of the Church?  Not at all! The issue has been the place of non-celibate homosexuals in the day-to-day life of the Church and in the administration of her sacraments.

This has been cloaked as an issue supposedly having to do with the literal au­thority of scripture — but that is simply and plainly not true, since divorce (which is strictly and explicitly prohibited by our Lord’s own words) seems no problem to the schismatics; and slavery, or the mandated tithe, or the proscription of usury, or the prohibition of eating meat with blood in it, or the admonition to remove one’s sinful hand or foot or eye (ALL of which are either supported or demanded by the New Testament) are not controversial issues at all. And what about Luke 14:33: “[Jesus said to them]…none of you can become my disciples if you do not give up all your possessions.’ No, the Bible is NOT treated as the unchangeable literal authority by anyone – not even by those who claim to do so.

Or, in addition, this schismatic movement has declared that the cause for the problems is the heretical departure of the Episcopal Church from the ancient tradition and practice of the universal Catholic Church. But that same ancient and universal Catholic tradition demands that (ever since the Council of Nicaea) (a) bishops must be unmarried (or, if married, abstain from sex with their spouses once consecrated), (b) that once ordained a person may not marry, (c) that ordained men may not re-marry if they are widowed, and in any case may not marry widows, (d) that divorce and re-mar­riage is unaccept­able, and – certainly – (e) that no bishop is allowed to interfere in another bish­op’s jurisdiction without invitation, etc., etc.

We have, therefore, one, and only one highly selective issue among literally dozens which the self-acclaimed reformers consider evidence of the Episcopal Church’s apostasy: that is, the acceptance and blessing of committed relationships between persons of the same sex, and the admission of such active lesbians and gays to Holy Orders.

Does that give a suggestion of what the R EAL issue is here? And that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Holy Scripture or Church Tradition or anything except the ubiquitous hatred and fear of gay and lesbian persons and their rela­tionships in our culture — and the desire to perpetuate the degradation, humili­ation, and torment of these people in the name of “righteousness” and “purity”?

Virtually every other previous departure from Scripture or Church Tradition has been embraced or, at the very least, tolerated — even by those who disagreed strongly. But it is the Church’s provision of human and ecclesiastical equity and pastoral care to non-celibate gays and lesbians which has finally driven the homophobes and the gay-bashers to attempt to erect a parallel Church. The actions of the schismatics have proven beyond a doubt that there exists that very hatred and fear which has been claimed by gays and lesbians out of their own experience, and fiercely denied by the schismatics. This schism is NOT a matter of principle — nor of ANY principle —  it is plainly and simply a matter of homophobia and gay bashing, and power-grabbing, and as such it does not deserve serious consideration or accommodation.

So, I find it impossible to believe that issues of theology or author­ity or scriptural interpretation lie behind the present-day schismatic undertak­ings in the Episcopal Church. To my mind, virtually every conceivable variation of theological variety, source of authority, and scriptural interpretation has proven to be an acceptable or tolerable plurality of belief and practice in the Episcopal Church. What has finally precipitated the present schism is quite apparently PRIMARILY the attitude of the schismatics towards Episcopal gays and les­bians and their place in the life of the Church.

Underlying the decision to engage in schism, of course, are the basic principles of the Continental Reformations: the belief that (a) the Church is “invisible”, i.e., only those who personally have “accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior” are in it, Holy Baptism notwithstanding; and (b) the private individual is the ultimate authority in all matters religious: proclaiming entirely private interpretation of Scripture, private receptionism in sacramental theology, denial that character is bestowed in Holy Orders, disavowal of infant baptism, and repudiation of the ecclesiology of the ancient Tradition, and (c) that religion is primarily a matter of morality, not of dogmatic or mystical theology and the Church’s primary function is to judge the morals and ethics of its members.

The present dissidents claim authority of “the whole catholic Church” for their positions. That’s an easy way to oppose change, since the only part of the Body of Christ to which any Episcopalian has access is the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. There exists no ecumenical (i.e., world-wide) Council, no formal or canonical way to impact or influence any other province of any other branch of the Catholic Church. It is no more possible now to obtain universal Christian consent to any principle than it was (in the 16^th century) to obtain universal Christian consent to translate liturgy into the vernacular; or to authorize married clergy; or (in the 17^th century) to authorize the translation of Scripture; or (in the 18^th century) to elect bishops democratically, or (in the 20^th century) to ordain women. So, to demand universal Christian consensus (or even universal Anglican consensus) before making an ecclesiastical change is simply to recognize that no ecclesiastical change is possible or ever will be. The Church of England translated the liturgy in 1549; the Roman Catholic Church (and parts of the Eastern Orthodox) didn’t catch up to us for over 400 years — and some haven’t yet!

If there is a Church member who is troubled by the ordaining of gays or the blessing of same-sex unions, who honestly wishes to avoid schism, there are plenty of recognized and highly-respected biblical and theological scholars who can provide thorough erudite and academic interpretations and explanations of the apparently anti-gay Bible passages — certainly adequate to satisfy anyone’s conscience concerning biblical authority (if it is a matter of conscience). But, on the other hand, if the temptation to schism is not a matter of conscience, but only a disguised issue of power, control, homophobia, misogyny, or dread of change, then respectable scholarship is irrelevant. In my opinion the matter simply does not begin with biblical or ecclesiastical authority at all, it begins with prejudice, bigotry, and fear – and then turns to Bible verses and history to justify those anxieties.

Another concern I have is the apparent sociological blindness of the dissenters. Are they entirely insensitive to what is going on in the world around them? With the Canadian nation authorizing same-sex marriage, with the US Supreme Court approving sexual relations between adult, consenting gays, with the State of Massachusetts declaring that gays must be given the right to marry, with over half of the Fortune 500 companies providing “domestic partner” insurance coverage for their employees, with the Church of England having approved sexual relationships between gay lay-folk, with Reformed Judaism ordaining gay rabbis, with same-sex unions being blessed in dozens of ECUSA dioceses, with gay clubs exploding in high schools across the nations — with all of this (and so much more there is no space to catalog) do you really believe that you can stand like King Canute and order the tide not to rise? Are you so blindly parochial that you do not sense what is happening across the entire spectrum of Western civilization? Are you really interested in becoming another tiny Purity Cult that will be a dysfunctional antique in 5 to 10 years?

That’s very depressing to any theologically literate or biblically informed per­son! The sorrow is that quite probably theological and biblical issues are just not in themselves important enough any longer even to be the raw material for schism. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were?

We are reminded of the words of the great Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey who wrote (in The Apostolic Spirit): “As Anglicans, we believe that these attempts to purify the church by certain ethical criteria cause it to lose the reality of what it means to be dedicated to the holiness of God."

Review:  To Mend the Net.  Drexel W. Gomez and Maurice W. Sinclair.
Carrolton , TX : The Ekklesia Society, 2001.

Reviewer’s note, November, 2003: The book under study was the foundational document of the current efforts of American conservatives and Anglican Primates to create a structure to discipline ECUSA. Now that the Primates have gone to work at the request of the American Anglican Council, the following critique of this book, written in 2001 is worth considering as we prepare for the future.

To Mend the Net is a new book that proposes measures designed to curb certain modern ecclesiastical innovations said to have imperiled the unity of the Anglican Communion. The editors of this work are Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the Province of the West Indies and Bishop Maurice Sinclair, Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone of America. No authors are listed for any particular chapter or section, a strange choice for anonymity in a book about the truth of the gospel. According to the jacket, the book was written by “a small team of bishops and scholars,” and the apparent members of the assisting team are commended at the beginning: Bill Atwood, Robinson Cavalcanti, John Chew, Emmanuel Gbonigi, Peter Moore, Christopher Seitz, Peter Toon and Philip Turner. With the book’s uneven and sometimes polemical style, at the end, the reader is left wondering, “who wrote this?” “Why can we not know who wrote each section?”

One premise of the book is that three modern, Western innovations have imperiled the unity -- torn the net -- of the Anglican Communion.  They are, first, the “ordination of women”, seen as a “serious dilemma” in its own right, but “intolerable” when “imposed against conscience” (p. 11).  A new sexual ethic that emphasizes “pleasure and individual fulfillment” is background to the practice of the “wealthiest of our member churches” providing the other two innovations (if not the first). These are, second, the “ordination of active homosexuals” and, third, the blessing of gay partnerships (p. 11). While the ordination of women is only a “serious dilemma” (read, ‘we ca