CLGS

Rumors are beginning to circulate that the Episcopal Church in
the U.S. might no longer be considered "Anglican" after all. The
Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Commission on Communion will soon
make its recommendations and some are suggesting that the Commission
will recommend a severe censure of the Episcopal Church.

The Anglican Communion, to which the Episcopal Church in the
U.S. belongs, has weathered many such moments of crisis in its history.
The seventeenth century divisions over English Puritans, disagreements
over the institution of slavery and the ordination of women are just a
few examples. At stake in such moments is the often precarious quality
of the relationship between the various provinces of the Anglican
Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who does not wield the same
kind of legislative authority as, say, the Pope does in Roman
Catholicism.

The ordination of women and the ordination of openly gay and
lesbian people may be the most serious but only the latest in a series
of potentially divisive moments when Anglican Christians must discern
yet again what being "in communion" with each other really means and
what it looks like in practice. The ordination last november of V. Gene
Robinson as Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire has made that process
of discernment even more urgent. Bishop Robinson is openly gay and
partnered. He is not the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican
Communion (Otis Charles, the retired bishop of Utah, was the first), but
Bishop Robinson is the first one to be out and open and partnered during
the election process. Likewise, Bishops Charles and Robinson are not the
first openly gay clergy in the Episcopal Church; there are many, many
openly lesbian and gay deacons and priests in several of the provinces
in the Anglican Communion. But the office of bishop, as a symbol of
church unity, is an entirely different matter.

In response to Bishop Robinson's ordination and the threats of
schism that ensued, the Archbishop of Canterbury created "The Lambeth
Commission on Communion" to study the question of what it means for
Anglican provinces to be in communion with each other and how to
maintain that communion in times of disagreement. The Commission was not
charged with evaluating the suitability of ordaining openly gay and
lesbian people; rather, its task is to reflect on the meaning of
communion, both theologically and with reference to canon law, and to
make recommendations to Archbishop Rowan Williams about how to address
the objections to and growing discomfort about Bishop Robinson in some
quarters of the Anglican Communion.

Jay Johnson, CLGS Programming and Development Director, is also
an Episcopal priest and theologian. He has been working on several
fronts regarding these issues, including writing the two essays included
below.

The first essay—Faithful Evolution: The Dynamic Character of
Christian Theology in Anglican Traditions—was written expressly for
the Lambeth Commission and is a theological essay on the nature of
authority in Anglican Christianity. Issues concerning theological
method, human sexuality and Trinitarian Christian faith are woven
together in this essay to make an argument for preserving a particular
kind of authority among Anglicans, which does not necessitate being in
full agreement with each other. Some of those who oppose Bishop
Robinson's ordination are now calling for various types of "alternative
episcopal oversight" in the Anglican Communion, which would allow some
congregations to be under the jurisdication of a different bishop if
they don't agree with their own bishop's position. Jay's essay argues
that this would represent a serious theological mistake for Anglican
Christianity.

The second essay, much shorter than the first, was written in
response to a column that appeared recently in The Living Church, an
Episcopal Church magazine. In that column, Tad de Bordenave lamented the
fact that supporters of Bishop Robinson fail to understand the position
of those who object to Bishop Robinson's ordination. This is especially
so, de Bordenave suggested, regarding the authority of the Bible. Jay's
response seeks to place questions about biblical authority in their
larger context in Anglican traditions. The question for Anglicans is not
merely how to read the Bible but also and just as importantly how to
understand what kind of role the Bible ought to play in Christian faith
and theology.

• Faithful Evolution: The Dynamic Character of Christian Theology in Anglican Traditions [PDF]