Saturday, January 08, 2011

A Proposal for the Unification of the North American Anglican Church


By Robin G. Jordan

A concept that I believe has merit is an expansion of the “third-province” proposal that was made several years ago. Under this proposal a third non-geographic province would have been created in England for Church of England parishes that could not for reasons of conscience accept the ministry of women priests and Church of England clergy who could not for similar reasons accept the oversight of women bishops. This province would have in turn been organized into geographical dioceses and episcopal areas that would have shared the same territory as the dioceses of the Provinces of Canterbury and York. They and the parishes in them would have been ‘peculiarities,’ as they are known in English canon and ecclesiastical law.

A ‘peculiarity’ is a chapel, district, or parish that is under the oversight of a different bishop from the bishop of the diocese in which it is located. The Deanery of Jersey is a ‘peculiarity’ under the oversight of the Bishop of Windsor. The Deanery of Jersey has its own canons. The Bailiwick of Jersey on the island of Jersey is not a part of the United Kingdom; it is a self-governing British Crown Dependency. It has its own parliament, the States of Jersey. The Diocese of Sodor and Man also has its own distinct ecclesiastical law. The Isle of Man is also a self-governing British Crown Dependency and has its own own parliament, the Tynwald.

The concept of overlapping jurisdictions is not new. The Convocation of American Churches in Europe and the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe, also known as the Diocese in Europe, overlap each other. The Anglican Church in North America has a number of non-geographic dioceses and geographic dioceses with congregations outside of their territorial bounds.

What I envision is a new Anglican province in North America that is comprised of non-geographic ecclesiastical or internal provinces composed of dioceses that are voluntary associations of churches that share affinity with each other in one or more ways. In my original proposal that I submitted to a number of Common Cause bishops and published on the Internet I called these non-geographic ecclesiastical or internal provinces ‘convocations’ since this was the designation that a number of Anglican entities that had formed in North America under the oversight of one of the global South provinces or dioceses had adopted for themselves. Each ecclesiastical or internal province would have its own synod and bishops and would be divided into geographic dioceses and episcopal areas.

An episcopal area is a sub-division of a diocese to which is assigned an assistant, auxiliary, or suffragan bishop. An episcopal area might have an archdeacon and form an archdeaconry as in the Diocese of Europe and the proposed consolidated dioceses in the Province of York.

At the time I made my original proposal I saw the formation of these ecclesiastical or internal provinces as an evolutionary development of the existing convocations as each convocation attracted congregations and clergy that shared affinity with each other in one or more ways. Congregations and clergy would migrate to the convocation in which they felt most at home.

This particular organization of the new Anglican province would establish buffers between those affinity groups that have historically experienced tension between each other when they shared a province or diocese together and even experienced hostility toward each other.

Congregations and clergy opposed to women’s ordination and congregations and clergy supporting women’s ordination would have their own provinces. Conservative evangelicals would have their own province; traditionalist Anglo-Catholics would have their own province.

The diocesan synods would elect representatives to a general synod that would meet periodically. As in the case of the Anglican Church of Australia certain categories of legislation would not be binding upon a diocese affected by that legislation unless the synod of the diocese assented to the legislation. A diocesan synod would also be able to withdraw its assent at a later date.

A diocese would be able to elect bishops in a number of ways. The diocesan synod would be able to elect bishops. It would be able to elect a board of electors, electoral board, or electoral college to elect bishops. It would be able to delegate the election of a bishop to what in the regulations of the Diocese of Trinidad and Tobago refers to as a ‘Selection Committee.’ A similar method is used in a number of dioceses of the Anglican Church in Australia when the diocesan synod cannot agree upon a new bishop. The selection of a new bishop is delegated to the metropolitan and other bishops of the internal province to which the diocese belongs in a resolution of the diocesan synod, which may include instructions to the bishops and a list of candidates. The diocesan synod may reserve approval of the candidate that the bishops select. When the first two methods would be used to elect a bishop, a certificate of election would be submitted to the provincial metropolitan or bishops of the internal province or the chancellor of the diocese who would confirm the bishop elect meets the necessary canonical requirements. This is the procedure followed in the Anglican Church of Australia.

The Anglican Church of Australia and the Anglican Church of the Province of the Southern Cone of America are good models for a new Anglican province in North America. The Anglican Church of Australia is a federation of dioceses that were at one time in their history completely independent of each other. The Province of the Southern Cone is also a federation of dioceses. With the except of the Diocese of Argentina and the Diocese of Northern Argentina each diocese is also a national church, and encompasses the territory of a South American country within its bounds.

Dioceses and episcopal areas in different provinces could engage in joint projects where they shared common interests in the same way the sub-divisions in different denominations cooperate with each other. Congregations in the same locality but different ecclesiastical or internal provinces could also cooperate with each other.

This proposal recognizes that one of the problems intrinsic in territory-based judicatories is that they usually contain a number of affinity groups with disparate theologies and one group will seek to dominate the judicatory and impose its beliefs and practices upon the other groups. This not only generates tension and hostility but also eventually leads to the marginalization of one or more groups and their exclusion from the judicatory.

A judicatory will acquire a particular ethos and will not welcome the formation of new congregations with a different ethos or even the emergence of a different ethos in existing congregations. In the 1980s the ethos of the Diocese of Kentucky was High Church. The singing of ‘celebration songs,’ associated with the charismatic movement, was not encouraged in parish and mission churches even from the authorized supplement to the hymnal, Songs for Celebration. At the same time these songs were harmonious with regional tastes in music and would have made Episcopal services more attractive to the local population. Kentucky is the home of shaped note hymn singing, bluegrass music, and other forms of folk music. Country-western music is very popular in the state.

In the Episcopal Church territory-based judicatories contributed to the liberalization of the denomination as the liberal faction in one diocese after another gained hegemony in the diocese. Conservative parishes and clergy were forced to capitulate to the liberal agenda or withdraw from the diocese. In the past we have seen the Anglo-Catholic party do the same thing. In the Diocese of Kentucky in the nineteenth century the Anglo-Catholic clergy of the diocese prevented the bishop of the diocese, the Right Rev. Benjamin Bosworth Smith, relocating to New York and taking up the duties of Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church until he agreed not to give full ecclesiastical authority to his assistant bishop. The assistant bishop was Bishop George David Cummins. This incident was one of a number of incidents that finally led Cummins to succeed from the Protestant Episcopal Church and to form the Reformed Episcopal Church.

This proposal would not eliminate tribalism within the conservative wing of the North American Anglican Church. It would, however, recognize the existence of tribalism and form judicatories based on tribe instead of territory. It would not put a complete stop to the rivalry between the different tribes but it would end the warring for the control of a particular judicatory. It would channel their competition into planting new churches and advancing the gospel. It would also be a positive step toward giving a semblance of order to the alphabet soup that comprises the conservative wing of the North American Anglican Church, and forming it into a new North American Anglican province. With the Roman Catholic Church forming its own Anglican Church within its fold, now may be the time to give serious thought to this proposal.

10 comments:

RMBruton said...

The Anglican-Unification Church of North America, it has a certain je ne sais quoi about it n'est pas?

maddy said...

The Anglican church North america has number of of non geographic dioceses and geographic dioceses. Thanks!
Proposal Forms

Hudson said...

For this Anglican, proceeding in a patchwork fashion is no solution. I will not be attached to old structures, no matter how lightly. I will remain in the Wilderness until such time as an Anglo-Reformed remnant want to leave it all behind.

Robin G. Jordan said...

Hudson,

I looked over the text of the article and I find no mention of proceeding in a patchwork fashion or attaching to old structures but did find a proposal for the organization of a new Anglican province. You may be confusing my current proposal with an earlier one.

The bottom line for me is not what I want to do but what God wants me to do. The Israelites had a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day to guide them in the Sinai. They also had God's prophet Moses to whom God spoke. We do not have such clear guidance in our wilderness wanderings. We must listen for the voice of God ourselves, and then do what he wants and not what we want.

Let us not forget that Jesus was driven into the wilderness and there he was tempted. Those who have followed his footsteps have also found temptation there. They have been tempted to turn stone into bread, to cast themselves from a pinnacle, and to bow before Satan.

But are we really wandering in the wilderness? Are we not dwelling in the land of Midian? Have we not pitched our tent with a wandering Bedouin tribe? Can we truly hear the still small voice of God above the babble of their voices anymore than we can above the shriek of the wind and the howl of the demons in the desert places?

Hudson said...

I think you will find less and less support among Anglicans of our stripe for establishing a "new" province of the OLD Anglican Communion. Indeed, those few with hope are hoping to rebuild in the dust of its reprobation, and not to be attached to its rotting carcass. One even wonders whether using the tainted word "Anglican" for self-identification is a mistake. Our recoverable heritage is the Book of Common Prayer and its written formularies.... period.

Robin G. Jordan said...

Hudson,

Here again you are making assumptions. I offered a proposal for a new Anglican province. I did not include in that proposal any suggestions for affiliation.

If you retain the historic formularies, which include the Book of Common Prayer, then you are "Anglican" whether or not you like the label. As for the word "Anglican" being tainted, I think that is largely a matter of perception. "Anglican" in its means "of England" or "of the the reformed Church of England." You have a choice: restore the name's tarnished reputation if indeed it is tarnished or cooking up some name to replace it. But look what happened to the last two attempts to do that--the Protestant Episcopal Church, which became far from Protestant, and the Reformed Episcopal Church, which is no longer Reformed. Why surrender a perfectly good name because you do not like a number of the folks that have appropriated it and misused it? In my experience it is better to stick with "Anglican" than adopt a new name, with which you will,as time passes, not be happy either. Your dissatisfaction is not really with the name but with a segment of those using it. I have no trouble with the name because I do not believe that these folks truly represent what it means to be Anglican, of the reformed Church of England.

I do not think that we can assume the whole body of Anglicanism is unhealthy on the basis of the western churches, as tempting as that may be and as much as the Roman Catholic Church would like to portray the global Anglican Church in that light. What is affecting the western churches also is affecting non-Anglican churches, including the conservative ones. If you look at Christianity throughout its whole history, you will find no golden age, not even in New Testament times. Every now and then a small group will form what it claims is the perfect church but upon close examination it is flawed like everything else. Being flawed is a part of the human condition. If we were not flawed, we would not fall into sin and we would not need a Saviour.

Talking about rotting carcases sounds very grand and I am sure that you can gather a small group around you that will commiserate with you, shaking their heads at the deplorable state of affairs in the world, but where does that get you? I suspect that most of the folks whom you gather will not be interested in doing anything about it, being God's instruments through whom he brings those who walk in darkness into the bright light of his kingdom. In my experience those whose favorite pastime is to complain about the dreadful state of the world are not interested in carrying the light of the gospel into the dark places of the world, even if you are. Yes, the world is in an awful state. What else is new? It is going to be like this until Christ comes again--an imperfect church in an imperfect world, tares mixed in with the wheat. As I see it, we can do the best we can with what we have. Or we can bellyache about what we have and do nothing. Which is being faithful and obedient to God?

Hudson said...

"Here again you are making assumptions" is playing the man and not the ball. Just an observation.

It's hard to tell whether your last paragraph is criticizing specific individuals (me perhaps) who choose to stand apart from official "Anglicanism", or whether you are referring to hypothetical individuals. Clarity is never a bad thing and, as I said before, I am not alone in finding no place to stand other than the one you appear to disparage.

Referring to your earlier analogies for those of us who are hoping to one day bring honor to our Anglican heritage, I agree with you that the "Wilderness" is not particularly helpful, and in some respects "Midian" is not either. Consider if you will the city of Zoar (Genesis 19) if you want to understand the degree of pride I carry on my shoulders.

As for my proposed abandonment of the title "Anglican" (if necessary), there is plenty of precedent for it, and it does not imply that I dishonor the name. In fact, quite the opposite. It implies that the name is dishonored if recognition is given to those who bear the name dishonorably. Such recognition would surely come if we concede that there are multiple flavors of "Anglicanism" (as they claim) which can be united under that banner in one convocation or confederation... or whatever. I believe you agree with this principle, but for me it is better to be prepared to give up the name if it means losing the heritage to a compromise.

Our natural allies and friends are those of the Reformed persuasion, and we risk confusing them with our ambiguity if we refuse to unburden ourselves of certain artifacts of our confused heritage. I presume that you understand this, seeing your recent article that expresses the lightness with which we can regard our own affection for bishops. Therefore, I also assume that we may come to some mutual understanding on related issues, and that there is no need for unpleasantness between us.

Robin G. Jordan said...

Hudson,

When I wrote the last paragraph of my previous post, I had neither you nor hypothetical individuals particularly in mind. As you may know from surfing the web and visiting various blogs and other web sites how easy it is to gather a group to commiserate on any number of things.

But do these groups do anything about whatever condition they find so deplorable? In most, if not all cases, they do not.

The commiseration is a fruitless exercise, a waste of time, indeed that is what it is--a pastime, a way of passing the time. I will admit that I have in past been drawn into such exercises (and I still from time to time get drawn into them) and I know from experience that they accomplish nothing.

I find it counter-productive to identify a particular group because that can lead to unnecessary anomosity between other websites and those who frequent them and myself. I am not interested in starting brushfires that serve no purpose and are difficult to extinguish. They create a lot smoke and do a lot of damage but they also accomplish nothing.

My experience has also been that people may say one thing when they have a particular audience present but something altogether different privately. It is like teenagers. They are all bravado in front of their friends: they do not want to lose face. Their friends may egg them on. But take them aside at a later time and talk with them and they can be more reasonable.

When you read any of my articles read them with this thought in mind. There is method in my seeming madness. Also be careful about how you read between the lines. If you are not sure what point I am trying to make or where I stand upon a particular issue, ask me. In some cases I may have a firm position; in others I do not. I may have taken a deliberate 'wait and see' attitude. I am apt to hold two or more views in tension with each other. But please do not conclude that I am advocating this or that unless I actually say it. If I am not being very clear, please draw that to my attention. If you do not understand where I am going, please check with me. I may have gone off on a "rift" and not being really thinking about where I am going.

Hudson said...

I favor neither false despair, nor false hope, but rather a realistic assessment of opportunities. As such, there is genuine hope in abandoning everything that stopped working long ago, and starting anew with the only Godly possession we ever had, our Formularies.

Property, structures of the "communion" (provinces and dioceses), English culture, the appearance of catholic unity, and even our "Anglican" label; they are all dispensable. God can make such things out of the stones at our feet. The less effort we make trying to hold onto things that cannot be held the better. Again, no false despair and no false hope.

Hudson said...

The liberals and Anglo-Catholics do not want our Formularies. Yet they do want our name (Anglican). Why is it so hard to accept that deal? We take what they don't want and leave what would only become a burden to us anyway.