EDITORIAL ....
(from the AFP Summer Issue 2001)
Disappointment at Kanuga
by The Rev'd Gavin DunbarAs mentioned in the last issue, there were hopes for the March meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion at Kanuga in North Carolina, hopes that the Primates' Meeting might accept an enhanced responsibility for maintaining the unity and integrity of the Communion in matters of doctrine and discipline. The proposal (entitled "Mend the Net") itself was promising; the reception was disappointing. After only the most cursory discussion, it was referred to a committee for further study, and it is doubtful that it will ever make it back.
Some drew comfort from the fact that the liberal Primates failed to obtain a public condemnation of the Anglican Mission in America, the morally-conservative/charismatic missionary church under the bishops of the Provinces of Southeast Asia and Rwanda. There is no getting around the fact, however, that the final statement spoke in very distant terms of conservative complaints: "we have been reminded of alienated groups within the Church's own life. Some of our number spoke of the difficulties of those who were estranged from others because of changes of theology and practice—especially with regard to the acceptance of homosexual activity and the ordination of practising homosexuals—that they believe to be unfaithful to the gospel of Christ. We have committed ourselves to seek for ways to secure sustained pastoral care for all in our communion. We also resolved, as we did at our meeting last year in Porto [Portugal], to show responsibility toward each other, and to seek to avoid actions that might damage the credibility of our mission in the world".
Some readers may find these last sentences painfully ironic. If the classical teaching of marriage (for instance) can be spoken of merely as the "belief" of an "alienated group" within the church, as it is here, then talk about "secure sustained pastoral care for all", "responsibility toward each other", and "the credibility of their mission in the world" is a lot of empty talk. It is hard not to agree with the Rev'd Louis Tarsitano, who writes in the most recent issue of Touchstone magazine: "The faithful in the United States now have gone twice…to the chief pastors of the Anglican Communion to seek aid in preserving their religious lives. By not acting, and by allowing the Episcopal Church to go its own way in depriving the faithful of a spiritual home, the Primates have acted". They "have absolved American Anglicans of any moral duty to the Episcopal Church. They have cleared the way for them to exercise the same duties and rights of spiritual and moral self-preservation that were exercised by the Church of England at the Reformation or by the old Protestant Episcopal Church (for different reasons) after the American Revolution".
Father Tarsitano, priest of one of the continuing bodies, the Anglican Church in America, goes on to argue that American Anglicans should build "from the ground up, a national communion of Anglican churches, complete with formularies", following the model of "the reorganization of the former colonial churches after the American Revolution into a single national church". This is indeed an urgent task for the many small and sometimes fractious continuing churches, especially those within the USA. Until they do so, they will lack the credibility required to attract adherents, and so become the nucleus of, or stimulus for, the kind of institutional re-alignment that many conservative Anglicans would welcome.
INGHAM AGAIN:
The Report of the Diocese of New Westminster's Legal and Canonical Commission on Same Sex UnionsThe report requested by Bishop Ingham after the Synod of the Diocese of New Westminster in May 1998 asked him to bless same-sex unions was released in April. It addressed three questions posed by the bishop: (1) whether the canons of the Anglican church preclude the authorization of same-sex unions; (2) if permitted, what approvals, if any, are required; (3) whether there are impediments in civil or common law to such blessings. To the surprise of few, their answers were favourable to the Synod's request: "no", "none", and "no".
It is difficult to take the report too seriously: the sophistries and subtleties by which it seeks to answer these questions are transparent. Thus, for instance, "if the Bishop had been requested to authorize the ‘marriage' of same-sex couples, then it is certainly arguable that the decision would involve questions of ‘doctrine' for the Anglican Church of Canada". However, since the Bishop has only been asked "to authorize clergy…to bless covenanted same-sex unions", then doctrine is not involved. Marriage is a sacrament; the blessing of covenanted same-sex unions is not a sacrament but only a "rite" which functions as "a promise and a symbol of pastoral care". Therefore, such blessing "does not involve any reconsideration of the traditions of marriage". "Instead, the fundamental question"— indeed virtually the only question for the commission—"is whether it falls within the jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster to authorize this rite. We conclude that it does, as a matter of the relevant canons, the traditional jus liturgicum of the diocesan bishop, and the customs of the Anglican Church of Canada"—subject of course to the usual empty rhetoric about "episcopal collegiality", which is carefully defined to permit unilateral action: "collegiality is not about consensus; rather collegiality is about discerning the way forward through dialogue, with respect and integrity".
All of this depends, as the authors admit, on the distinction between "rite" and "sacrament", between "marriage" and "blessing". So what is the difference? The report has trouble providing any. Thus "Marriage, as outlined in the Marriage Canon" is vaguely defined as "a social, spiritual, and historical institution between a heterosexual couple, man and woman". Doubtless it is a "social, spiritual and historical institution", but that could be said about other institutions also. What is its substance? Covenanted same-sex unions, it is asserted, are not marriage: "this is not to say that same sex unions are inferior to heterosexual marriage, but rather that they are distinct and valued in and of themselves". Elsewhere in the report, however, they are held to be equivalent to heterosexual common-law relationships, for which the church could also provide a rite of blessing. Since heterosexuality, therefore, is not the difference between marriage and the proposed blessing, the weight of difference is carried in the liturgical form, which the report strongly advises must reflect its status as a blessing and not some version of the sacrament of marriage (as had been proposed).
The body of the report then concludes with what reads to me like a lot of pompously pious twaddle: "it is our respectful opinion that this blurring of lines between blessing and marriage will not assist with the dialogue concerning this very complex matter. It is also our belief that it equally does not assist with the reconciling and healing work that needs to be done with gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. What is needed at this time is integrity, clarity, and compassion, and most of all, the grace of God to guide all of us together through this complex and gravely important matter".
The logical "integrity" of this argument falls apart when it is considered what role marriage plays in the Church's doctrine and discipline: not simply as one form of sexual union which we can supplement with other forms, but the only form. Marriage is definitive for the sexual practice not only of those who are within it, but also for those who are outside of it. The commandment, "thou shalt not commit adultery", in its fullest application means "no sexual union outside, before, or after the bond of marriage, which is the permanent, exclusive, and loving union of one man and one woman". Because of the hardness of men's hearts, the church has seen fit to soften the edges of this discipline (notably of course, in the remarriage of divorced persons), but the principle at least remains intact: in intention at least, every marriage is a permanent and exclusive union of a man and a woman, requiring the chastity of faithful love of those within the institution, and the chastity of continence without.
RECITING THE DAILY OFFICE
The Canadian Prayer Book (though not the American Prayer Book) maintains the traditional requirement of the clergy to recite the daily office of morning and evening prayer, "unless prevented by sickness or other urgent cause" (p. lvi). It allows for both private and public recitation in the Church. "In the latter case it is desirable that the bell should be rung, in order that the people may come to take part in the Service, or at least may lift up their hearts to God in the midst of their occupations". The original preface of 1549 (p.715) shows that public and common recitation was held to be normative: "that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion" (emphasis added). Recent liturgical research (Taft's The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West) shows that this ideal of the Reformers continued the tradition of the early church. Contrary to later notions, the office is not primarily a devotion for the use of the clergy alone, in private recitation. Those services are in fact the "common prayers" of the Church.
For isolated clergy, the ideal of public, common recitation remains difficult to practice. The apostolic demands of pastoral ministry, of family life, and the frenetic pace of contemporary culture, militate against the public and common recitation of the daily office in the church. Yet I wonder if we are not too easily persuaded of its impracticability, so that instead of allowing the Church's common prayer, the opus dei, to give shape, rhythm and order to our lives, we surrender our lives to the chaos and incoherence of the world. Surely some happy medium is possible, in which the recitation of the office does not become a straitjacket and a burden, but (at least on a few days of the week) provides a focus and a centre for the pastor and his people. And if the people were instructed on the duty, use, and profit of the daily office, would not some of them be able to assist the clergyman in his office?
These are hardly original thoughts—like other Anglicans of my generation who spent time in the church in the Maritimes, I was introduced to the discipline of the daily office years before I was ordained, by clergy and laity who understood and practised it; and I have maintained the discipline ever since, or rather, since my devotion waxes hot and cold by turns, it has maintained me. To those who first undertake it, the Prayer Book office can seem too rich and demanding: to pray these prayers, to profit from reading the psalms, lessons, and canticles requires an educated understanding and a devout heart. But that is simply what reading Scripture requires. Why should that be an objection to the office? The education it requires is simply that which the teaching ministry of the Church should provide, and Christian people should acquire. Like most rewarding exercises, the daily office is also demanding. But it is simple enough to begin: just read the office as if it meant something, with the care, attention, and reverence of humility, and the spiritual profit will begin immediately.
A Ritual Note: While I am on the topic of the daily office, one liturgical suggestion: since the reign of Elizabeth I, it has been customary to begin the office at least on Sundays and high holy days, with a metrical psalm (now usually a hymn), during which the clergy may make a ceremonial entrance, usually the length of the nave, often (since the 19th century) led by cross, torches, and banner, with vested acolytes and singers. If you consider how the office begins on a penitential note (the Confession and Absolution), which then turns to praise (the Glory be to the Father and, at Morning Prayer, the Venite), perhaps it would be more dramatically compelling if the clergy entered from the side in silence (or perhaps to some subdued and sombre organ music), then read the (penitential) sentences, and reserved the first hymn until after the Venite—which was its place until the Reformation. In that position it heightens the dramatic movement from penitence to praise, and sets forth the doctrinal themes of the season or day at the point where they are first needed—as a introduction to their further development in the psalms and lessons. It would be consistent with such a treatment, if only the penitential sentences were used at the beginning (the seasonal and non-penitential sentences are 20th century additions): the seasonal themes do not introduce the act of penitence (they are not the "sundry places" in Scripture which exhort us to repentance), and are more appropriately announced in the invitatory antiphons that may be said with the Venite, and the hymn that could be sung after it. Although medieval vespers and compline (the predecessors of Evensong) had no hymn before the psalms, that was because the whole of the day's office was seen as introduced by the opening of Mattins; as the versicle "O Lord open thou our lips" which originally was said only at Mattins is now said at Evensong as well, so could the hymn that introduces the Mattins psalmody and lesson also be recited at Evensong. I have never seen this done, mind you; I think it would be a sensible development. Cranmer did not provide hymns for the Prayer Book; and although hymns have since been provided, they have never yet been fully integrated with the rest of the liturgy.
A note on our Editor:
The Rev'd Gavin Dunbar was Rector of the Parish of Ecum Secum, Nova Scotia, and now serves as an associate priest in the parish of St. John's, Savannah, Georgia.
He is the editor of the Anglican Free Press, and past Vice-President of the Nova Scotia / PEI branch of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, and a former instructor at the Atlantic St. Michael's Youth Conference. He has written and lectured extensively on a range of topics, and has many god-children.