Crusty agrees with many elements of this Primer,
but is also astounded by some of its claims, and stunned by some of its straightforward
errors of fact. Perhaps it is best
to take things section by section, and offer some concluding remarks.
Introduction/In the
Beginning
The
first section sets out some basic principles, and makes an effort to ground
what will be some components of Anglican ecclesiology in the early church.
The
“Primer” is here to tell us “how and why” The Episcopal Church came to be. Thank goodness, since many of us regret having "that talk" with Episcopalians. As one who is a veteran of those
uncomfortable conversations telling Episcopalians actually how their church
got here, now we can
explain how this wonderful, mysterious gift of the Episcopal Church arrived on our doorstep!
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| In Hebrew, "hesed" and "hasidah" [stork] share the same root. |
COD
has no issue with the central motif of adaptation to local context and dating the Church all the way back to Antioch. This process of
adaptation to particular contexts is something which is integral to Christianity; the key is that this is something inherent to Anglicanism as
well, and, in Crusty’s thinking, its treatment here one of the areas he finds problematic in the
Primer. This process of adaptation
is not something linear, from the Church of England to the Episcopal Church, and not particular to Episcopal Church; but rather part of broader understandings
of adaptation fundamental to Christianity itself. This tends to get lost, at times, with the repeated
leitmotif in the report on comparing and contrasting the Episcopal Church and
the Church of England. Both
entities are emblematic of processes of adaptation to context in Christianity, not descendants.
Elsewhere
in the introduction: COD does not approve of speaking “branches” of church – in
part because such language often presumes there is “a” church. Thus Roman Catholics believe the church
“subsists” in the Catholic Church; Anglicans have at times presumed there are
“three” “valid” branches of the church (namely Anglicanism, the Catholic
Church, and the Orthodox Church), etc.
There
are also some strange historical turns in the introduction, specifically with
regards to Christianity in the British Isles. What’s up with the Joseph of
Arimathea reference to English Christianity? Are we also supposed to believe in the myths surrounding St
Nicholas? That George Washington cut down a
cherry tree and could not tell a lie? Is Marion Zimmer Bradley
or Dan Brown a consultant on this? This is such an utterly ahistorical and
fanciful legend that it is just strange to have it mentioned here. Similarly, in
terms of actual evidence of British Christianity, we have record of British bishops at the Council of Arles
in 314. Evidence of British
bishops at Nicaea is disputed.
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| Perhaps Arthur's Round Table influenced General Convention? |
The Primer then tackles the issue of the mission of Augustine
of Canterbury and its relation to Celtic Christianity.
Crusty is frankly confused by the efforts to compare the
Celtic and Benedictine forms of Christianity as they mingled in England. The Primer notes that “Roman ways” eventually
would win out in the overlap between Celtic and Roman practices, but then suddenly starts contrasting Celtic and Benedictine
traditions. It seems to argue that a “hierarchical but participatory” sense of governance where the “abbot makes the decisions” is part
of the Benedictine influence of Augustine’s mission. Yet the first time Crusty ready this, he thought it was
referencing the Celtic Church – which was marked in the 6th and 7th
centuries by a church organized around monasteries, where abbots often had more
power than bishops in the church.
What, apparently, is being used to describe the “Benedictine” influence
of Augustine – a hierarchical model where the abbot makes decisions – actually
describes Celtic Christianity as well.
If anything, what was perhaps most influential was the formation of a
tradition bishop-diocese relationship instead of the Celtic system centered
more around monasteries.
COD also takes issue with the term “re-founding the Christian Church
in England.” The Primer itself
notes there were already Christians present when Augustine’s mission
arrived. Rather, a different kind
of church structure was introduced, rather than Christianity itself being
re-established.
Crusty agrees with the general efforts to set Henry VIII in his
context; monarchs attempting to assert more control over the church in their
areas was common in the medieval period.
The monarchs in France and especially Spain had perhaps as much if not
more control over the church in their kingdoms as the English monarch, and they
didn’t need to split with the papacy to get it.
It is important to contrast the changes under Henry with those
under Edward and Elizabeth.
Yet, as written, the Primer seems to place the Elizabethan Settlement
as coming into being after Elizabeth’s excommunication in 1570 by Pius V: "After Pope Pius V excommunicated her in 1570, having failed to have her dislodged from the throne by force, Elizabeth laid the foundation of the modern Church of England, with the Archbishop of Canterbury as spiritual head and the Crown as the governor of the church’s temporal existence." The situation is far more complex; many
building blocks of what is called the “Elizabethan Settlement” were in place
well before 1570, yet none are mentioned (the 1559 BCP, Act of Supremacy,
etc). How is 1570 a dividing
line? This is not adequately
explained or put in any kind of context, only asserting that the Settlement places
“Archbishop of Canterbury as spiritual head” and “Crown as supreme governor of
church’s temporal affairs.” What
is meant by spiritual and temporal?
The church had plenty of authority in what we might call temporal –
there were ecclesiasl courts which had a role in probate of wills, for instance
– and the Crown and Parliament had authority in what we might call spiritual,
such as being able to authorize liturgies for the church. This division is not as neat as what
the Primer is asserting, and, as we shall see, this truncated understanding of the Settlement will be extended to the American context.
The Primer then amazingly skips all the way to Cromwell,
leaving much that could be said about the period between 1570 and the
1640s. One could challenge the
notion that the Settlement didn’t really “settle” anything but in fact birthed
the Puritan movement which would be enormously influential for English-speaking
British and American Christianity.
One could also argue the ways in which the early 17th century
was in some ways more foundational to a thing called ‘Anglicanism’ than the
‘Settlement’ of the 1550s; things like Hooker’s theology, or the role of the
Caroline Divines, or, really, anything. The historical narrative here is
confusing and problematic. Cromwell
and the Commonwealth are called the “zenith of Presbyterian experiment in the
church of England.” This is simply
inaccurate. Cromwell was an
Independent (what we could call a Congregationalist) and actually introduced
religious toleration. Under Cromwell, elements of the Act of Uniformity were repealed, so while there was technically a Presbyterian state church, no one was required to subscribe to it. The Book of Common Prayer and episcopacy had been
proscribed, but this was done by the Rump Parliament before Cromwell made himself Lord
Protector.
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| Cromwell was a d**k, but not Presbyterian. |
The narrative then jumps to the 19th century and
the work of William Reed Huntington, bracketing the American church’s development
to a later section. The Primer
makes what is perhaps one of the most significant errors, noting that the four
components of the Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral are “essential features of an Anglican
Church.” This is simply not the
case. The Quadrilateral, as
formulated, was the distillation or summary of the faith and order of the church
of the undivided first centuries into four essential points, not an attempt to delineate markers of what makes an "Anglican" church.
As this section of the full text of the memorial adopted by the House of Bishops puts it,
But furthermore, we do hereby affirm that the Christian unity . . .can be restored only by
the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men.As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore as essential to the restoration of unity among the divided branches of Christendom, we account the following, to wit:
And then the famous four points follow.
These are not the features of an Anglican
Church; rather, if anything, Anglicanism reflects these elements which are part of the legacy
of the ancient church. It is a
much, much later development that Anglicans redefined the Quadrilateral as part of what holds Anglicans together from what was meant to be a
ground upon which to reunite Christians on the basis of the faith and order of the undivided church.
English
Colonies become the United States of America
The next section jumps back from the 1870s and its misinterpretation of Huntington to
look at the development of Anglicanism in the colonial period.
Crusty considers it a reach to say the churches formed in
the colonies could be seen as under “one diocese” given the ways in which other
forms of organization and authority were involved. In some colonies, the legislature played a role in defining
parish boundaries; missionaries were selected and vetted and served at the discretion of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel; there were varying rules behind who was able to
induct a rector into a congregation; and the ways other clergy were under
contract directly to congregations.
While technically true that clergy in the colonies were under the bishop
of London, saying they were “one diocese” is an ecclesiological stretch. It is also astonishing that there is no
mention of the Vestry system, perhaps the single biggest development of
colonial Anglicanism and the role it gave to lay persons in governance of the
church. In fact, the opposition of some Anglicans to a
bishop in the colonies was precisely because of concerns this would lessen the
role of lay persons. It is simply
unbelievable that a Primer on ecclesiology and governance does not mention the
ways in which the Vestry system developed in the colonial period in some
colonies.
Keeping the Faith…and Order
The
next section looks at the formation of The Episcopal Church following the
American Revolution.
No
argument from COD on the first basic point of consensus: that there be as much continuity with
the Church of England as possible, Episcopal governance, and a balancing of
clerical and lay authority in any church to be formed.
Yet
there is the continued fetishization of the Settlement that was never actually or accurately described in this Primer – it notes “Episcopalians translated Queen Elizabeth’s
Settlement.” There is a linearity
expressed here that obscures what Crusty thinks is really going on – namely,
that Episcopalians went through a process of adaptation of the form of
Christianity they received to their context, just as Christians did in Antioch,
and just as English Christianity did in the 1500s. The Settlement was not translated by Episcopalians. Episcopalians in the 1780s and the Church of England in the 1550s were both doing what Christians in Antioch did in the 50s. There is not so much causality, but examples of the same phenomenon occurring.
The
continued ignoring of the Vestry system comes back to haunt the Primer here, as
it claims this governance was expressed in “Parliamentary” terms. White and others looked to the
Vestry system, local state Conventions, and committees of correspondence that
were aspects of ecclesial and political governance in the colonial period –
they were not self-consciously translating any Settlement, but instead took the
models of governance they had and adapted them.
In this section Crusty is also utterly perplexed at the
assertion that clergy were “still in charge of spiritual matters, the laity still
in charge of temporal matters.” The
first draft Constitution produced by The Episcopal Church was for a unicameral
body, and, while a bicameral General Convention was adopted, clergy and lay
deputies still sat together in the House of Deputies and voted on all matters,
whether spiritual or temporal.
What is the point of making this tendentious distinction?
Success At Last
The next section lays out the development of the Episcopal
Church following its formation in 1789.
Language here is confusing at times as well. It notes the church would have bishops ordained in ancient
succession (Crusty wonders why the term “historic succession” as defined in Called to Common Mission is not used, as
it has been part of the Episcopal Church’s formal understanding for about 25
years) “elected by diocesan conventions, and approved for consecration by the
General Convention (as was the rule at first).” This is confusing because the “rule” being referenced is the
fact that consent needed to be given by the General Convention to persons
chosen as bishop – the election by diocesan conventions is not part of this at
all, since the Constitution has never set any prescribed way that bishops were
to be chosen. Election by diocesan
conventions has become the standard, but that was by diocesan choice; a diocese
could choose a bishop by tossing darts or casting lots.
The Primer seems unable to contain its fetishization of the
Elizabethan Settlement, noting that while Queen Elizabeth II “has only a formal
role in governing her [sic] Church…the original balance of her great ancestor’s
Settlement has been a key element of Anglican provinces around the world,
including the Episcopal Church.”
It is simply odd to set the formation of the governance of The Episcopal
Church as following from the Elizabethan Settlement. This reduces the Settlement purely to issues of governance,
when theology (the 39 Articles), ecclesiology (the work of Matthew Parker, John
Jewel, and Richard Hooker), and liturgy (the 1559 Book of Common Prayer) are
integral elements that go into the formation of the Church of England under her
reign. It also does not do justice
to immediate factors going into the formation of the Episcopal Church’s
governance – local adaptations already in place, like Vestries, and the overall
influence of democratic and representative ideals. Yes, the balance of bishops and clergy on the one hand, and
laity on the other, is an aspect of Anglicanism. But there are many other factors involved in the way these
adaptations take place. Nathan
Hatch’s Democratization of American Christianity is simply crucial here.
Comparing and
Contrasting
Now that the Primer has brought us to speed on the formation
of The Episcopal Church, this next section compares and contrasts the
governance of the Episcopal Church with that of the Church of England. Here the Primer makes the very
important point that we need to be wary of caricatures or prejudices regarding
one or the other, rightly noting the Episcopal Church is more hierarchical than
English Anglicans often believe, and the Church of England is more democratic
than many Episcopalians believe.
While often lamenting or bewailing that other provinces of the Communion
just don’t understand us, how many Episcopalians can describe how the Church of
England is governed, let alone any other provinces of the Communion? Similarly, while condescendingly huffing that Americans don't understand the complexity of the Church of England's governance, many of the responses to Gene Robinson's consecration revealed just how little many members of the Church of England understand about the polity of the Episcopal Church.
In beginning this section, however, the Primer again repeats
its problematic understanding of the Quadrilateral: it notes that “The
Episcopal Church succeeded in faithfully translating the four elements of the
Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral into American life.” A neat trick for Episcopalians in 1789 to adapt points from
a document produced in 1886 and which is intended to describe the ways in which
Christians can form a single, national Protestant church based on a
distillation of the essential elements of the undivided church. The Quadrilateral is not a marker of
Anglican identity. Anglicans made
it into one. The Primer then
anachronistically and cart-before-the-horsely reads the formation of the
Episcopal Church as an adaptation of the Quadrilateral. Huh?
COD is thrilled that the Primer continues to put nails in
the coffin of another historical legend (the Primer thereby proving, unlike its
bizarre referencing of the Joseph of Arimathea myth, that it does not believe
everything it is told): any supposed overlap between the Constitution of the
Episcopal Church and the US Constitution.
This myth is one of the more noxious self-congratulatory legacies of
establishmentarian thought, and the more that can be done to dispel it, the
better.
On the other hand, the Primer then repeats the
oversimplified understanding of the Episcopal Church regarding the Civil
War. It notes that the General
Convention “refused to recognize the absences of the dioceses of the
Confederate states” and after the war “they were reintegrated as if nothing had
happened.” The reality is more
complex. The documents of the
PECCSA (Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America) do
point out that the formation of a separate church was the result of secession
and the establishment of a new nation, not because of any differences of faith
and order. Yet the reintegration
was not as neat as the Primer states.
Some bishops did come to the 1865 General Convention, on the basis of
their understanding that the PECCSA ceased to exist with the defeat of the
Confederacy. Yet other southern
dioceses did not come, and later met formally to dissolve the PECCSA before rejoining the Episcopal Church. Likewise in a footnote the Primer
asserts the General Convention “did not recognize any of its [the PECCSA] acts”,
when in fact Bishop Richard Hooker Wilmer, the only bishop consecrated by the
PECCSA and who did not receive the consent of the General Convention, was
seated in the House of Bishops. This whole section, in addition, also perpetuates one of the great historical self-congratulatory canards of the Episcopal Church -- namely, that we did not divide over slavery. Well, one of the reasons other denominations divided over slavery is because there was significant difference of opinion over slavery expressed, and because churches took stands based on conviction and principle. For instance, the Methodist Episcopal Church divided because the church took a stand by suspending one of its bishops for owning slaves. By refusing to condemn slavery (one of the foremost apologists for slavery in the Episcopal Church would later serve as Presiding Bishop, John Henry Hopkins), it is true the Episcopal Church did not split, but sacrificed any sense of moral integrity on the altar of a false unity that faded away as soon as hostilities commenced and a split occurred.
In general, though, Crusty agrees with the substance of
these comparisons in this section; it is true the Episcopal Church consciously has not sought
to create an Archbishop with metrpolitical authority, and that final authority
has been vested in the General Convention as a whole.
A major exception is the mention again of the simply bizarre
concept that the ordained are to tend to spiritual affairs, and laity to
temporal. It notes that the House
of Bishops and House of Deputies “work together.” More accurately, both must agree to pass any legislation or make any decision, whether spiritual or temporal. The “traditional division” whereby the House of Bishops
considers spiritual matters first and the House of Deputies considers temporal
matters first is just that – a matter of agreed-upon procedure that appears
nowhere in the Constitution. Just
like the Filibuster is not part of the US Constitution, the fact that the House
of Bishops votes on matters of doctrine first and then sends them to deputies,
and deputies vote on other matters first before sending it to bishops, is
nowhere in the Constitution but a way in which the General Convention has
chosen to order its business. The
Primer doth protest too much by seeing this as revealing how the Episcopal
Church has made some sort of division between clergy and laity in dealing with
matters temporal and spiritual.
BOTH clergy and laity deal with matters spiritual and temporal. The primer than goes on to assert that clergy “assist the whole
church by accepting responsibility for worship, the Church’s principal act; the
faithful proclamation of the Gospel, the teaching of the Faith, and the
administration of the sacraments.
The laypeople take responsibility for finances, and for maintaining the
properties of the congregation for use by the recto for ministry. More importantly, they do the work of
God’s mission in the world.”
Efforts to create ordained and lay shtetls, where clergy are
defined by responsibility for doctrine, teaching, and sacraments, and lay
persons for finances and property, is simply incomprehensible to Crusty. It flies in the face of our actual
governance – where clergy and lay people have equal say at the General
Convention in all decisions, whether spiritual or teomporal – and of our
baptismal ecclesiology, where in baptism we all share in Christ’s eternal
priesthood – and of our ordination rites, where the ministry of deacons,
priests, and bishops is grounded in the ministry of the church as a whole.
Of all the elements in the Primer, this effort to argue that
clergy should be primarily responsible for spiritual matters, and laity for temporal
matters, is not only historically untenable, but an affront to our actual
polity.
What does this all
mean?
The closing section begins with exactly the question Crusty
had: what does this all mean?
The conclusion then offers one of the few parallels COD can
wholeheartedly support with the Elizabethan Settlement: that in the adaptation of the
Christianity we received from the Church of England to our own context, Episcopalians excluded people. The so-called “Elizabethan Settlement”
did so as well, executing over 300 persons for religious reasons, fining
people for not attending worship, and refusing any kind of compromise with the Puritan movement that contributed to an eventual civil war.
Crusty doesn’t agree with a lot of the parallels between the formation
of the Episcopal Church and the “Elizabethan Settlement” as described in the
Primer, but he does with this one.
Crusty wishes the Primer as a whole did not see the Anglican ecclesiological world as
some kind of binary dance between The Episcopal Church and the Church of
England. The Church of England and
Episcopal Church are not like Thor and Loki or Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu or N
Sync and Backstreet Boys or the two suns of Tatooine. The Communion, while shaped by The Episcopal Church and the
Church of England, are not solely defined by it.
For example, the Primer notes that “one quarter of the thirty eight
provinces of the Anglican Communion owe their existence to The Episcopal
Church.” Wonderful. But what about the Nippon Sei Ko Kai,
which was formed with both Episcopal Church and Church of England missions combined? What about places which owe their
existence to the Church of England but which consciously adopted aspects of the
Episcopal Church in its governance, like when George Selwyn specifically
looked to the Episcopal Church’s form of goverance in drafting the first
Constitution for the Church in New Zealand? What about Haiti, which The Episcopal Church officially
wanted to have nothing to do with (Theodore Holly was not formally sponsored
by the Episcopal Church or its missionary organizations) and later
admitted?
 |
| Crusty wants it that way. |
So in the end, why was this Primer written? Perhaps because “at a time when many
voices are calling for changes in The Episcopal Church’s governance, it is good
to recall where we come from.”
Perhaps, but there are so many areas of this Primer which are
problematic – from its efforts to see its particular interpretation of The
Elizabethan Settlement as influencing lay and clerical divisions of authority,
to separating clerical and lay spheres of governance, to its misinterpretation
of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral – that Crusty is not sure if it would be
helpful in those discussions. For
anyone who has read this blog, you probably can see that COD would argue that
looking at our past, if anything, will reinforce that we need changes to our
governance: Anglicanism has
constantly adapted structures of organization and governance to political,
cultural, religious, and social changes.
Crusty firmly believes we are to be as bold and faithful in our own time
as the founders of the Episcopal Church were, or those who shaped Anglican
Christianity in the Reformation period.
The past did not just make us “who we are today,” it can also point us
to where God is calling us to go.
As a coda, COD also needs to point out the several errors
of fact in the Timeline appended to the Primer:
--as noted, British representation at Nicaea is disputed
--Queen Mary ascended to the throne in 1553, not 1552
--the Book of Common Prayer was issued in 1559, not 1558
--Oliver Cromwell did not make the Church of England
“puritan”; he in fact decreed religious toleration and repealed the Act of Uniformity
--the reintegration of the southern dioceses is more complex
than laid out here
--the first African American suffragan bishops, Demby and Delany, were consecrated in 1918, not 1919.
