A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

As the Anglican Communion turns (and turns, and turns…)

I’m sure others better informed than I am will have plenty to say about this NT Wright interview, but I have a couple of questions for Anglican/Episcopalian readers: Has the Episcopal Church violated its own canon laws in proceeding with the election of Gene Robinson? And in what sense does the structure of the Anglican Communion forbid a national church from proceeding with something like this? My impression was that the various provinces were more or less autonomous. But +Wright’s comments make this all sound like a foregone conclusion.

Also, I can’t help but bristle a bit at +Wright’s tone here: it brings out my patriotism. We’re not gonna let some snooty Brits tell us what to do! Spirit of ’76, baby! Just sayin’. Actually, I’m sort of in an ambiguous position here: I’m a non-Episcopalian attending an Episcopal parish that has gone out of its way not to align itself formally with either “side” in the current unpleasantness. So, if the “schismatics” are to be “pruned” I really have no idea which branch I’d be sitting on.

6 responses to “As the Anglican Communion turns (and turns, and turns…)”

  1. Elliot

    As much as I admire Wright I had to bristle too, when I heard he either showed up at or sent an urgent letter to the last ECUSA General Synod, telling them they simply MUST vote in a certain direction.

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  2. *Christopher

    This is THE tone that has always turned me off to +Wright in his public statements and in some of his theological/biblical writings. Now we Americans are getting a taste of THE tone he has generally reserved for gay folk. It reveals that his objectivity actually is just like all of us deeply influenced by emotions, biases, prejudices, and the like and his tendency to pontificate pretentiously at critical times is itself no help to difficult circumstances, but a schismatic tendency itself.

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  3. Jack Perry

    Where does anyone say that the Episcopal Church violated its own canon laws? I’ve looked over a few things she linked to, but the closest I can come is the statement in the Windsor Report that the Episcopal Church merely disregarded their own theological commission’s recommendation.

    I don’t think it’s fair to bristle at snippets of what Rev. Wright said, and all I see in the Times article (weblog?) are snippets, and hastily typed snippets at that, with a number of typos. God knows I wouldn’t want people to judge the subtlety of my reasoning by some snippets of an interview (the fact that my reasoning lacks subtlety is beside the point). Where is the original interview?

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  4. Jack Perry

    That aside, I do appreciate that someone of Rev. Wright’s stature has finally held a mirror to the general progressive tendency to engage in *exactly* the behavior he describes (in my communion as well): It is quite clear that the split is coming from those in the American church who are insisting on doing something that the Lambeth Conference and the rest of the Communion had asked them not to do. …There are many in America who are trying to have their cake and eat it, who are doing the schismatic thing and then accusing those who object of being schismatic. That is the bizarre thing.

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  5. Lee

    I’m not saying Wright has accused the Episcopal Church of violating its canon laws (though I could’ve made that clearer) – my (sincere, non-rhetorical) question is whether the EC has done anything irregular according to the established norms of Anglican/Episcopal polity. I honestly don’t know the answer to that. That’s what I was hoping Episcopal readers might be able to shed some light on.

    Fair point though about not judging someone by snippets of the interview, but as far as I can tell, the author of the linked article, Ruth Gledhill, was the interviewer. It’s kind of confusingly written because there are sound bites at the head of the article and lengthier excerpts later on.

    My problem with calling anybody a schismatic in this context is that it begs the question about what it means to be in communion. +Wright clearly thinks that the actions of the American church are schismatic, but that seems to assume what’s at issue (i.e. what demands for uniformity can be made upon the national churches).

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  6. Lee

    One other thought I had that harks back to this post: http://verbumipsum.blogspot.com/2006/11/black-helicopter-watch.html

    Wright seems to exhibit a certain view of centralized authority – political and ecclesiastical – that I find myself reacting strongly against. I tend to take the view that if, say, the good people of New Hampshire want to elect a bishop who happens to be gay, what’s the big deal? I realize things aren’t that simple, but, at least at a visceral level, I’m much more attached to the ideals of liberty, in both political and religious matters.

    And I’ve always found that idea that the election of +Gene Robinson was another example of “American unilaterialism” (just like Iraq!) wholly unpersuasive.

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