Coincidentially this today from Ephraim Radner

It is significant in this regard that the office of Presiding Bishop, unlike that of diocesan Bishop, is a constitutionally-defined office. The Presiding Bishop does not have a see and does not exercise ordinary power, but only the limited authority delegated by the Constitution and duly enacted canons. Included in this defined authority is jurisdiction over the small number of churches known as the “Convocation of American Churches in Europe,” but even this limited jurisdiction is exercised with the consent of other Anglican Bishops having authority in Europe

Wow…looks like the ACI struck a real nerve.

There’s a reason the title is “Presiding Bishop,” not “Archbishop.”

I had thought that Jim Jones and the Peoples’ Temple and, perhaps, the Bogomils, had set the all-time record for asserting the most heresies while claiming to be, at least initially, Christians. However, the Episcopos have apparently decided to give them a run for the money. Not content with Arianism (Christ not divine), Universalism (all saved), Monophysitism (one nature in Christ), Syncretism (all paths lead to God), Paulicanism (no sins needing Atonement), Unitarianism (Singular divinity/no Trinity), and Modernism (no absolute truth/truth evolves over time and different circumstances), they now appear to have pulled up a “golden oldie” – Conciliarism – the belief that a council, or in this case convention, holds some supreme power over and above that of a bishop over his flock via Apostolic Succession. Christ gave the Keys to the Kingdom to some holy committee meeting, I guess. Of course, this contradicts their 19th century attempted flirtation with the Orthodox in which they claimed to also see the Church as bishops and their flocks in communion with each other with no higher power. Gotta hand it to these characters – the French wore this one out at least 500 years ago, but the Episcopos gladly went and pulled it out of the dustbin anyway. However, the question is do they have the cojones to really push the envelope and adopt one of the “cargo cults” from the south Pacific? C’mon, gang, go for it!

I’m surprised that this Haller bloke refers to the “Holy Catholic Church of Rome,” rather than the “Stinking Fascist Church of Rome.”

Yeah well, it’s always good to see 815 get a poke in the eye.

but – unless you’re a postmodernist – it seems there is a glaring inconsistency here.

Either TEC is – organizationally a “church” or it is a “federation”.

Here we find the ACI arguing TEC is a federation. It’s up to diocese, each diocese can do what it wants, and no diocese can affect another.(It also means that TEC really, truly is the organizational template for APNA – just another individualist, pointless, federation). Well if that is the case – there is no reason for schism! Who cares! Diocese can be in and out of Wicca or Anglican or GAFCAN or Dagon – why does it matter?

I think 815 is right: an Anglican province should be a church. Trying anything like this in the church of Nigeria, anywhere in the real Global South in fact – hey even in the CoE – would get you unfrocked, deposed, probably imprisoned for fraud. Or worse.

I think this is another example of stupidity of the ACI. Big surprise. The whole “private rites of blessing” argument is after all Ephrain Radner’s fault!

But APNA is no better. What’s wrong with a church – yes even an Anglican church – with discipline, with leadership, where clergy swear fealty to their bishops, and bishops to their archbishops, and where oath-breakers, heretics, and other abusers are punished to the full extent of canon and secular law.
Where – if you want to leave – you are clearly leaving into damnation, and no way can you take a church or a diocese or a parish out to follow your own heretical schismatic leader.

if your church, parish, diocese or whatever wants to join APNA: fine. First you donate all your assets to APNA. Second your clergy sign a declaration making them personally liable for say 10,000,000 US if they are ever found guilt of disobedience, schism, or heresy. Now we’re talking.

And that’s why ACI is wrong to argue this, and APNA is wrong to follow that precedent.

Can we expect a “drive-by” from Susan anytime soon?

Specious is defined by Haller and his ilk, not least the Presiding Bishop-ess, and the manner in which they pretend to canonicity.

Shooting off one’s mouth does not make one canonical, Kate, David, Susan, et alia, it does however remove all doubt about one’s location in the pantheon of fools.

But that’s an old adage about which no doubt we have new “scientific” evidence and experential “feelings”.
Reality is not thereby altered, however.

While I certainly don’t disagree with the report, it is probably of no effect, at least from a legal standpoint. The courts have bought a hierarchical church in their rulings, and some scholarly writings, even if true, are not likely to change that. About the only plausible way of reining in Dr. Shori would be from within, and the chances of that are slim to none.

Sinner, from the point of view of an outsider, I think the problem here is that the governance of TEC is falling between two stools; on the one hand, there’s the “We have the Apostolic Succession! We have bishops! We are a hierarchical church!” view of things, and on the other, there’s the “We’re a democracy! We elect our bishops, they’re not appointed! There is no Pope or Metropolitan! The laity have an equal voice!” claims.

That being so, the ultimate spiritual authority is probably the bishop in his/her diocese and then all the dioceses acting in unison; the ultimate legal authority is probably General Convention, when it comes to passing bylaws, having meetings, setting budgets and the like.

Now that the Presiding Bishop is assuming spiritual/governing powers that were never in the original constitution, things are getting very interesting indeed.

Haller at his silliest –
“This is what a hierarchical entity looks like: the constituents agree to be bound by the decisions of the group, even when they are in the minority, and disagree with the decisions. They relinquish their autonomy in order to be part of a larger entity, to whose decisions they submit,” he adds.

He is correct as far as that goes. However, what he does not deal with is B033. Somehow that resolution is non-binding, even though General Convention 2006 passed it. How many diocesan bishops announced that they would not abide by it, despite the fact that General Convention passed it? I notice that none of those bishops were subject to any discipline. So Dr. Haller’s arguments fall flat on their fatuous face!

The best counter example to Dr. Haller’s reasoning is what General Convention chose to do about the irregular ordinations of women in 1976 (I think that is the date). Instead of disciplining the erring bishops who participated in that bit of rebellion, General Convention “regularized” the ordinations and then went full speed ahead. But interestingly enough, they did allow for a “conscience” clause which allowed a bishop to say “No” to women’s ordination. What happened to the hierarchy there, Dr. Haller?

No, the Episcopal Church claims hierarchy when it suits someone’s purposes and then claims autonomy when that is a better way to get what someone wants.

Dear MCJ,
In general your comments do not actually address the truth or falsity of any of my statements, but rather raise other questions — some of which you may be surprised to find I agree (such as the duty of dioceses to conform to the decisions of the larger church even when I might find them personally wrongheaded. I do not, for instance, think individual dioceses should at this point be authorizing same-sex blessings, and have said so publicly.) To address Mr Lewis’ rather silly point, the fact that people disobey laws, or others fail to enforce them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. (He is also mistaken concerning the women “ordained” in 1976 — the actual decision was that the proposal to “regularize” was defeated, and they were required to undergo conditional ordination _once WO became possible under church law._ I understand that all but one of them did so.)

On the one point where you offer a canonical challenge, you are partially correct. The consent process for a bishop’s _consecration_ is indeed referred to in terms of ordination, not election. However, I was also thinking — as it is more the rule these days than the exception — of the election of a bishop coadjutor; the election itself requires prior permission from the relevant majorities of the appropriate bodies. Pardon my short-hand conflation; the point is that no one becomes a bishop without the approval of the larger church. (Which I take it you think in some circumstances, as I do, is a good thing.)

I would think you would agree with my essentially conservative position — that the rule of the church should be binding on those committed to it. The fact that many liberals disregard the law is as offensive to me as it appears to be to you.

Pretensions to hierarchy are not hierarchy. Yes, we have no archbishop or metropolitan, even with Kate’s claims to be super-presiding bishopess. Too bad about the Constitution and canons and history, T.

Until the Episcopalians get an independent judiciary, so to speak, this impasse is never going to be resoloved.

The problem is, Tobias Haller, that you are calling on conservatives to defer to decisions of the American church, even when those decisions contradict the principles of the larger Anglican Church, much less the church catholic, to which we claim to belong as Anglicans. And even within the American church, the ACI statement and its signatories hold that the American church is not properly observing its own rules.

The Church is not an independent parliamentary body governed by majority vote and nothing else. We must follow scripture first and the tradition of the church consistent with scripture. I expect a Christian Bishop to stand for the faith without regard to General Convention if that becomes necessary.

Katharine, I quite agree on two counts. Echoing Richard Hooker, I find it offensive that anyone should suggest that a person be forced to agree with a position that deeply offends his or her conscience or devout beliefs. The proper course in such a situation is to resign from the offending body. But to try to stay in the body and say it hasn’t the constitutional authority to do as it has done seems to me to lead only to mischief. I recall the scene from Man for all Seasons in which More talks about the importance of the law, even when one disagrees with it. That is why I say my view is basically conservative.

I also agree that TEC has not always properly followed it’s own rules. Careful readers of my blog will recall my objections at the time. Nor do I think two wrongs make a right, and I believe some actions were undertaken in haste, and ill-advisedly.

Tobias Haller, thanks for your reply. This statement, coming from bishops who have declared their intention to STAY in TEC, asserts, as I see it, merely their right to associate their own dioceses with the Anglican Covenant, should such a creature ever come into existence, without regard to General Convention’s refusal or delay on the Covenant. These are NOT, or at least not yet, dioceses which threaten to secede. If even this mild desire to associate with the Anglican Communion Covenant is deemed unacceptable, what options do moderate-to-conservative dioceses have?

Jefferts Schori has already exceeded the canonical limits of her office on several occasions and has misinterpreted and misused disciplinary canons. This statement from the Communion Partner bishops is a call to TEC to observe its own polity more carefully. If bishops may not declare themselves to be “Anglican” without express permission from General Convention, are they simply administrative functionaries of Convention rather than bishops in the church of God?

(Full disclosure: My home base in the U.S. is in North Carolina, and several years ago, based upon Bp. Curry’s public statements there, I joined a parish which now intends to be ACNA. Many people in the liberal dioceses have made the same unhappy choice.)

Thank you, Katharine. As the Covenant now stands, I see no reason for a diocese or parish not to sign on to it. I’ve not read the current draft in detail, and have some concerns about some vague language in section four, but I could probably support it at this point. (I’m interested to see what the ACC says about it.)

However, my objections are not to that, but to what I see as errors in understanding our polity — most of which apparently come from Mr. McCall, who although an able attorney, has seriously misunderstood some of the language of the Constitution and Canons. He is an expert in international law, and does not have the grasp of context which church canons presuppose. His omissions are telling, and strike me as more the craft of a lawyer than someone interested in a fair articulation of the polity of TEC. He is, in short, trying to “make a case” that TEC is not as centrally governed as it is. And I think he fails, for the reasons I cited. Just to provide another aspect of the consent to the ordination of bishops — can you imagine what it would be like if the Senators of every state had to be approved by a majority of all of the other senators and state legislatures prior to taking office? To suggest that dioceses are “autonomous” is a serious misunderstanding of our polity. That doesn’t stop them from signing an “Anglican Covenant” — however, which is why McCall’s long piece seems to be so much misguided rhetoric.

BTW, I had a very pleasant interchange with Bishop Howe on this subject. He and I appear to agree that there is nothing to prevent a diocese taking such an action, and as far as it goes, that at present it is of no real significance, since TEC is part of the Anglican Communion, and is very likely to remain so.

Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Haller. You made this site better so if you e-mail me a mailing address, an MCJ coffee mug’s on its way. Because I said so, that’s why. I do weird stuff like that now and then.

Dear Christopher, thanks for the kind words. I enjoy commenting here because the level of discourse is rational and I feel something can be accomplished in rational discussion.

I would love to have an MCJ mug to add to a growing mug collection, but may have to add another shelf! My parish church is St James, 2500 Jerome Ave., Bronx NY 10468.

You are a gracious host, even when we disagree; which, to my mind, is the true sign of graciousness.

Tobias,

First rule at my joint is that you can say anything you want, you can rip me a new one if the mood strikes you, as long as you’re civilized. And the regulars here can be counted on to call out anyone who isn’t.

The mug’s on it’s way and should get there in a week or so. VCAC means Vast Conservative Anglican Conspiracy. But if you start getting checks from those people, I am really going to be pissed off and I’ll probably find a new vast conspiracy to write for. I mean, a guy can only put up with so much.

Christopher,
Wanted to let you know the mug arrived yesterday afternoon. It is “substantial” in proportion and weight, suitable to express gravitas and seriousness. It now has an honored place in my office.

Sorry to hear about the ankle. Take care of yourself and heal quickly. God bless you.
T.