If you can't run the race, change the rules.

Just when you thought it was safe, the Anglican Wars pop up again. The usual suspects have come with a new scheme designed to force an outcome of their own liking.

The Episcopal Cafe reports:
Mouneer Anis, Primate of Egypt has resigned from the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council, and urged others to do the same.

His resignation coincides with the release of a typically verbose missive from the Anglican Communion Institute in which the four guys with a Web site urge the following:

But since there is no body currently recognized, either by the Instruments or the Churches of the Communion, as authorized to exercise the responsibilities of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion in coordinating the implementation of the Covenant, we think it is necessary and appropriate for the covenanting Churches themselves to fulfill this task initially by convening a provisional committee drawn from the Primates and ACC representatives of Churches that adopt the Covenant to coordinate the implementation of the Covenant within the Churches and dioceses wishing to participate.
...Many Episcopalians have been critical of the Covenant, but they've never advocated anything as radical as what Anis and the ACI have called for tonight.
On reading this: I wrote this comment on The Lead:

From the very beginning, the ACI and their like-minded friends have operated this way. If you cannot get what you want from the structure you are in, create a new one and drive around it.

Having failed to get their way through the General Convention, they declare that the Episcopal Church is somehow beholden to the entire Anglican Communion. They say this, rewriting history as they go, even though the first bishops of the first Lambeth Conferences specifically warned against such a notion.

Then when the Anglican Consultative Council was insufficiently punitive, they get the Primates Council to assume authority it was never granted.

They take a "report" (called Windsor) and turn it into a blue print for a re-design of the Anglican Communion with the emphasis on punishment and enforcement.

When one of their parishes or dioceses don't like the decisions of their Province, they convince other Primates from other jurisdictions to intervene calling it a rescue mission, even as those same Primates would never allow such a thing on their own turf.

They encourage the creation of an alternative province and when it becomes clear that it will not (and cannot) take over the Anglican franchise in the US, they abandon it.

And now that the Anglican Covenant, which they themselves clamored for and rammed through processes that they themselves subverted, is going to have to be vetted and approved by the very councils and synods that they have driven around, they declare the process broken and propose an entirely new structure and process more to their liking.

Every time they have reached a constitutional or legislative impasse, their solution is to create a new structure tailor-made to assure the outcome they want. Now even the distorted, biased, and bloated processes of their own design cannot get the job done. Once more they want to change the rules to get a result they can rely on.

The Covenant is a solution in search of a problem. It is a structural and political solution to a theological problem. As such, the more we try to make it work the more artificial it becomes.

The Covenant is a failure because it is a fake solution to a real problem. It claims to be about unity and common life, when it is all about (despite the protestations of Archbishop Williams on YouTube) punishment and exclusion. The only outcome the ACI, Annis and the rest want is punishment and ultimate exclusion of the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and anyone else they don't like from a purified Anglican Communion.

Even if they succeed, and these latest statements prove that they won't, the Covenant will not solve the fundemental theological challenge of the ekklesia. We Christians are called to live in unity, and we have been promised that we will share in the Oneness that Christ shares with God and with us. The problem is that we Christians have a hard time living into the unity we have already been given. Communion is not a document or covenant to be enforced, it is a grace to be accepted and discipline to be lived. To live in Communion requires risk, faith and above all humility.

What the ACI and Annis propose is sheer arrogance. They cannot get what they want so they have invented yet another false scheme to get their way. If we haven't learned from the so-called Windsor "process" and the whole flawed Covenant process, we should learn it now: no amount of fake structuralism can do what Christ has already promised...to make us one.


Adorno/Girard

It seems that events in the AC and TEC are unwinding in a rather predictable course, though at a tedious pace. So enough of all that.

I'm still here, but I've been working on finishing a book and some articles, the most interesting of which, I think, is a piece on Adorno and Girard, "Baptizing Adorno's Odysseus."

The basic idea? Move political theology toward ecclesiology. Girard's theory of scapegoating can be adopted into Adorno's account of the failure of working classes to complete the work of their own liberation--a problem whose global ramifications have been displayed of late in the US' spectacular financial meltdown. Rolling back the disposition to self-sacrifice would require a counter-praxis--a ritual--expressing a rejection of scapegoating. But not just any ritual would do; it must express an ultimate rejection, requiring a transcendent reference point: God. The transcendent reference point stuff is not especially new, but a staple of political theology (think Schmitt, Benjamin). What might be new, and what I want to emphasize, is the tie between the transcendent and repeated ritual. A mere occasional reference won't suffice.

The idea's weakness, as I present it, is its neutrality on God--on its face theism is enough, specifically Christian theism is not required. There are two ways to go, so far as I can tell: something about the Crucifixion and Resurrection necessarily uniquely ground God's rejection of scapegoating. That would do the trick, but I couldn't find the argument. Or one might think the Trinity would serve as a necessary, unique ground; how could one prove that though? Hence, an aporia.

Moral Hazard

The Church of England has lost £ 40 million it invested in New York's Stuyvesant Town apartment complex, a deal which cost it less than 1% of its total asset portfolio, but which the Guardian newspaper points out "was a large layout for a single investment and it comes on the back of other setbacks in the recession." (In a chart accompanying this article in the print edition, the New York Times puts the CofE investment at $70 million).

However, the investment with Tishman Speyer raises more than prudential concerns; it involved the Church of England in a deal which has been called a form of "predatory equity," in this case, when a building is "purchased by owners whose business model requires driving out rent stabilized tenants." (More on this practice may be found here). Rent stabilization in Stuy Town was protecting, in the words of the Guardian,"one of the few remaining bastions of affordable living among the multimillion-dollar tower blocks of lower Manhattan." The Church of England's investment strategy required wiping out this bastion, and depriving these tenants of what are for many long-time family homes.

Moreover,this predatory equity strategy was a feature, not a bug. According to the Gothamist at the time of the sale, "The purchase price of $5.4 billion can only be supported by substantial increases in the rents, by taking units out of rent regulation over time. The offering circular for the sale suggested that the complex could be converted from 75 percent rent regulated units now to only 30 percent rent regulated by 2018." The fact that Tishman-Speyer was found by New York State's highest court to be illegally raising the tenants' rents while simultaneously receiving tax breaks predicated on their provision of rent stabilized housing demonstrates just how central to the offering the aggressive raising of rents was.

Ironically, on January 28, Arcbishop Williams will be the keynote speaker at the Trinity Institute, speaking on theology and the global economy:



In view of the primacy the Gospels depict Jesus giving questions of economic justice (Matt 25, anyone?), perhaps Archbishop Williams would be better occupied with removing the log from his own eye, before he meddles with other church's affairs?

(edited to correct date of Abp. Williams' presentation).

Amid the ruins, Episcopalians in Haiti respond to the earthquake

This is a video from the Wall Street Journal describing what life is like in Port au Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake on January 12th and the response of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, the largest and fasting growing diocese of the Episcopal Church.

The Wall Street Journal writes:

In earthquake-stricken Haiti, an Episcopal bishop is providing relief to as many survivors as he can while they wait for the arrival of official aid. Jean Zache Duracin speaks with WSJ's Charles Forelle on how he's trying to help.


Here is the Episcopal Relief and Development page on Haiti, with links for donation and other ways you can help.

H/T TrinEast.

The Toxic Atmosphere

I begin to think that it's simply impossible for progressive Christians to engage with our more conservative brothers and sisters online. They just don't want us.

Case in point: Covenant, which was founded to be a place for irenic across-the-gulf discussion, has reached the point where member Charlie Clauss asks "Have we run off all the progressives from Covenant?" Administrator Fr. Tony Clavier answers, "I do hope not."

A progressive, Michael Russell, responds: "Nope. But there is little point to even attempt further discourse with settled minds that expose more than one impasse which cannot be bridged with discourse. Please note that the previous sentence applies to me as well. “Covenant” has an orthodoxy peculiar to itself (largely subservient to the ACI line) and that is fine, but there is just no point in arguing with any vigor." Things deteriorate rapidly from there.

After a civil suggestion to "begin by naming some of the impasses," which Russell replies to, another commenter states that "what I advocate is not punishment but that TEC stop claiming to value the Communion while simultaneously rejecting the mind of the Communion expressed in Lambeth resolutions, requests from the ABC, proposals from the Primates, etc," and suggests that expulsion from the Anglican Communion is not punitive, merely definitional. When Russell points out that border-crossings and property "takings" also fit this description (he misses, also, the complete farce that is the Listening Process), the whole thread becomes a pile-on. Another member then chides Clauss for what he terms expressing "more concern. . . with aligning with liberals in pecusa than with those who share the same gospel but who are outside of pecusa."

By the end, two members have stated that TEc "is no longer a church" and that "TEC is not to me recognizable as a Church."

The sad thing is that I have had a very positive correspondence with two Covenant contributors, who have been irenic, friendly, and quite able to disagree without becoming disagreeable. Somehow, efforts to do this online seem to get spoiled by those who ache for doctrinal purity.

An amusing side note: One of these members, deploring Russell's citation of Richard Hooker, states "I have found that when you ask people who claim Hooker as their authority on Scripture it turns out that they have never read Hooker. I hope this isn’t the case with Michael," relying on a "pull quote" from Bk V of Hooker's Laws. When Russell--and Fr. Clavier--urge him not to rely on isolated snippets of Hooker,he repeatedly presses Russell for a quote. On a later thread, the same member asks "Michael, when can we expect your Hooker analysis that supports your argument that Hooker’s view of the primacy of Scripture only pertains to salvation?" After Russell replies, again without a pull quote, it turns out that the edition of Hooker that member was using was edited by Russell. Aye, well. Be careful who you slag online.

UPDATE: Fairness to the commentator who owns Rev. Russell's edition of Hooker requires I point out that his response to the "reveal" was quite gracious: "Yes I do [own Russell's edition]and I owe you a debt of gratitude for the edition that you put out. I may even have met you at S-W around some lectures by David Tracy. Yes, the price is incredible and I appreciate all the extra writings that are in your edition."

Which brings me back to my point--maybe online isn't the place to have these discussions. Maybe we need to be interacting directly with each other in real life, getting to see the good as well as the bad. Maybe a covenant could make sense if it came after, and not before, the crucial business of "intensifying relationships" by living them, and not legislating them.

Winning the Argument

Richard Hooker v. Walter Travers:

On Travers' complaint against Hooker that "he [Hooker] prayed before and not after his Sermons; that in his Prayers he named Bishops; that he kneeled both when he prayed and when he received the Sacrament, and (says Mr. Hooker in his defence) other exceptions so like these, as but to name, I should have thought a greater fault than to commit them."

--Walton, Life of Hooker in Hooker's Collected Works, vol. 1 at 46 (OUP 1875 ed.).

Nice one, mate!

Oh, No, Bobo!

I hate to always be slagging conservatives--I mean, c'mon, it gets predictable!--but even the nicest of them often displays a chilling indifference to people's lives. Today's example? David Brooks,here captured in dialogue with Gail Collins:
David Brooks: Gail, can I draw you into the America versus Europe debate? This is the old argument over which model of capitalism is better, the Anglo-American model or the continental one. It was recently rekindled by two bloggers extraordinaire — Jim Manzi and Jonathan Chait — and then joined by our colleague Paul Krugman.
***
I became convinced that our system was better not for the wealth-generating reasons the current bloggers are arguing about, but because it leads to more exciting lives.
Collins tries to reason with him (mistake!):
Gail Collins: David, you’re reminding me of an argument I listened to several eons ago, when I was in graduate school, between my husband Dan and a very conservative guy who I think was a relative of one of our professors.....

Dan said something about how he wanted to live in a country where everybody’s medical needs would be met whether they had the money to pay for a doctor or not. The other guy exploded in rage and yelled: “What’s the matter with you kids today? You have no sense of adventure!”
Bobo, however, does not get the point, and reasserts his thesis:
The other big difference is that the American model encourages hard work at the cost of instability. I think that encourages people to maximize their capacities. The continental model encourages less work at the cost of boredom. I knew people in Brussels who went to work at an organization at 25 sitting in one desk, and they could tell you exactly what desk they will be sitting in and what job they will be doing when they retire at 60 or 65. Yawn.
Collins puts away the stilletto and uses the truncheon:
Gail Collins: This may not be the best possible moment to tell Americans about the dreadful boredom that they’d be suffering if they were stuck with job security. However, the argument seems pretty moot, given the fact that the number of Americans who are protected by a labor union has been dropping for as long as I can remember....The question for Americans is whether we think people who have no guarantee of long-term employment need to be assured that whatever happens, they’ll still have health care and the guarantee of a very, very modest pension when they get old.

I think people would feel more free to take risks in their work life if they know that they don’t have to hang onto an uninspiring job just to protect their family’s health insurance
Still not getting it:
We in this country live in an immigrant heavy culture and we need an economic model that encourages assimilation. That’s what our system has always done. The continental model exists in countries with stable populations that do not feel the need to absorb immigrants. Their model is fine for that.
By the end of my stay in Brussels I concluded it would be wrong and impossible for the Germans or the French to adopt our model and wrong and impossible for us to adopt theirs. We each had stumbled toward models that fit our personalities.

Vive la différence.
Collins makes several efforts to point out to Brooks that there is a very real human cost for his squee! of excitement, but he just doesn't care. It's all abstract to him. And I think this, in teh end, is why I am not a conservative. A certain smugness in the face of other people's pain seems to go with that territory--just as a certain holier-than-thouness is the concomittant liberal flaw. I can only think of one conservative in public life who steadily showed compassion for those on the losing side of his principles--Learned Hand, who was, as I wrote years ago, not an Olympian figure like Holmes; no stranger, he was a brother. But that seems quite rare among conservative writers, at least. And Brooks is no rara avis.

Where is God in the earthquake?

Fr. Frank Logue from King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland, Georgia (the "Episconinja" video people...) gives a very fine reflection in response to the question "where is God in the Haiti earthquake?"

His video is in response to certain t.v. preachers who would blame the tragedy on the Haitians themselves as a sign of their sin and God's wrath.

Resolved

I originally wrote this for the secular press in 2000 just after the turn of the new year, when I was doing a weekly column for the Parkersburg (WV) News and Sentinel. I found it while looking for something else. I dusted it off and updated it a bit for my parish newsletter. It was written for a secular audience at time when religiosity, particularly Christianity, was taking a hard turn towards the angry and rigid. I was also thinking about the rise of fundementalisms across the board--not only Christian, but Jewish, Islamic and even militant Hindu movements in South Asia. Ten years later, I only had to dust it off a little.

If your New Year’s resolutions are at all like mine, then these are resolves that are filled with hope and good intentions that soon fall hard to reality. I know I should eat less and exercise more, but somehow I always manage to get these two backwards. And, two weeks into the New Year, I know that many of my best intentions already a by-gone memory.

Just the same, I know that there are things in my life that I would like to do better. These are behaviors that one just cannot will to make better, but really need to be cultivated into a habit. And I am not just talking about the usual vices; I am also talking about the spiritual life.

All religious people can resolve to pray more and worry less (something I also tend to reverse!). I have been considering some New Year’s resolutions that, if lived by, might make having faith less a source of contention and pride and more a source of hope and power. These are resolutions that we people of faith can make and then start new every day. The power for these resolves does not come from good intentions alone. If our faith has any meaning at all, then we know that the power for these come from the grace of God.

Here are my twenty religious resolutions for the New Year:

  1. I will allow my religion to change me
  2. I will resist telling other people how to change.
  3. I will seek to make my religion a channel for gratitude and appreciation.
  4. I will avoid using my religion as a channel for my anger.
  5. I will expect my faith to challenge me to be live ethically.
  6. I will give up needing to be certain about everything.
  7. I will allow my religion to both care for and challenge my insecurities.
  8. I will pay attention when my culture and my faith are in conflict.
  9. I will be wary of leaders who use religion to sow hatred, fear or division.
  10. I will allow my religion to temper my passion with humility.
  11. I will work to be for something good even when it easier to be against something bad.
  12. I will not allow my religion to become a fad or a trend.
  13. I will allow my religion to keep pace with my maturity.
  14. I will remember that my religion is for the benefit of the people and world around me.
  15. I will avoid holding on too tightly to my religion as a personal possession.
  16. I will give up punishment and shame as tool for religious persuasion.
  17. When I fail, I will expect my religion to challenge me to be responsible.
  18. I will not let the fact that I am an imperfect practitioner of my religion deter me from living my faith.
  19. I will not let the imperfection of other people’s faith deter me from having faith.
  20. I will accept beauty, fun, spontaneity and companionship as signs of God at work.

Have a blessed New Year.

See also DioBeth newSpin.

Harshing the ABC's Mellow

As a serious addict of Doctor Who, I pride myself on making the references snappy. So, when I first saw this story and its accompanying youtube, depicting the Archbishop of Canterbury in a cloak, looking for all the world like a superannuated Anthony Ainley, I had a sardonic chuckle.

But, alas, the Telegraph's James Delingpole and Damian Thompson beat me to it:
James Delingpole reckons that Archbishop Rowan Williams is reminiscent of Doctor Who’s arch-enemy the Master, as played by Roger Delgado in the incomparable Pertwee era. I think that’s a bit unfair. On the Master.
***

Well, the Master had his flaws, I’ll give you that. One of which was an unwavering commitment to the forces of evil. But at least he didn’t waffle, like Dr Rowan Williams. He wasn’t always strictly truthful, but unless you were massively gullible you knew where he stood. He was in favour of unbridled greed, tryannical world domination, the enslavement of entire galaxies, and the ordination of women bishops.
Guess which one of the Master's theological points I'm down with?

Could this be the ABC confronted with the need to take a position?



Oh, and Happy New Year, all!