Living Church Article

Written by our webmaster and found in the January 23, 2005 issue.

Our Common Ground

We rely on the simple and historic affirmations of faith found in the Book of Common Prayer

By John S. Morgan

Some would suggest that in these times of stress, the unity of the Episcopal Church has been fractured. But unity does not mean uniformity of opinion or of Scriptural interpretation. Our unity has been in the love of God, the examples of behavior set for us in the life and death of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the willingness to express our awe and thanksgiving in a common liturgy of immense beauty.

A model of unity was set for us in the Elizabethan Settlement where those who differed in dogma but still sought unity in the Lord were able to worship together in a common liturgy. At that time the contention was between Protestant and Catholic understandings of the Eucharist. Today it is over interpretations of Scripture. The specifics of the Elizabethan Settlement may have called for Catholic and Protestant unity in our common liturgy but the principle has been generalized in the classical Anglican ethos to include all who would be faithful to those Christian principles now expressed in our Baptismal Covenant.

It is ironic that the two most vocal, self-proclaimed guardians of the traditional, the American Anglican Council, and Forward in Faith disagree vociferously over the validity of women priests. Yet their supporters maintain an uneasy truce, as they exist side by side in the overlapping convocations of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. They can agree to disagree within their Network. They cannot agree to disagree with their adversaries in their church. They can tell you everything you need to know about sexuality but not about the validity of women priests.

It is ironic that these guardians of the traditional cannot find common ground in scripture concerning the validity of women priests but refuse to live in tolerance with those of their brethren who have a different understanding of what Scripture informs on items of sexuality. If unity means uniformity of doctrine the Network is not united.

Our unity is not one of a confessing faith. We rely on the simple and historic affirmations of faith found in The Book of Common Prayer .Confessing faiths inherently lead to schism. Schism has been tried repeatedly. One can find churches on the same street corner, in these United States, where churches have separated over a question of dogma.

The Episcopal Church's liturgical form makes worshippers more comfortable in the role of communicants taking a part in a drama, expressing awe and thanksgiving in the Divine Liturgy, rather than sinners struggling to get into heaven if only they could acknowledge the "true" set of dogmatic propositions - as if our heavenly parent, any particular item being out of place, were ready to pounce and say: "gotcha!"

The doctrine of the historic church forbade all divorce; it forbade the lending of money at any interest. It effectively mandated large families. Not even traditionalists would want to return to those days.

Scriptural interpretations change as the work of scholars and their contemporary resources are brought to bear. The doctrinal decision to outlaw birth control by the bishops of Lambeth in 1920 [actually 1908] became an embarrassment in 1930 when the Lambeth conference rescinded its decision. As our presiding bishop says: There is no neutral interpretation of Scripture. Only our forbearance is tested as we live in harmony and diversity with the considerations of other minds.

The present Archbishop of Canterbury thinks that Paul's concern, when carefully read, is not with homosexuals, but with heterosexuals who go against their natures to engage in homosexual acts. Discerning conservatives are beginning to admit that the moral of Sodom is about hospitality, exactly as Lot described in Genesis 19:9 “But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

Anglican luminary and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, a favorite in all factions of the church, in his book Mere Christianity states: "Finally, though I have had to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the center of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins."

This statement of CS Lewis went unchallenged until dissidents in the church were unable to advance their minority positions through due process at General Convention.

In the long sweep of history, surely we can recognize that our current problems in the church revolve around gender. Both the ordination of women and the full inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church are really problems of gender – growing pains as we attempt to extract eternal verities for men and women from a Testament written by men in the shadow and milieu of a patriarchal culture.

Some may elect to leave or use their power base to subvert from within but our essential unity comes from our visceral resonance with the example and sometimes inscrutable teachings of Jesus, the awe, reverence, fellowship, and thanksgiving as we encounter God in the Divine Liturgy, and our struggle to live out the commitments of our baptismal covenants.

John S. Morgan is a member of All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, Texas.