The tone is restrained: many more questions than direct statements or answers. Also a lot of very mixed metaphors! There is, however, a degree of pessimism about continued unity which corresponds to the Archbishop of Canterbury's tone when he was speaking at the time of the ACC meeting in Nottingham.

All the more striking, therefore, are the clear criticisms of the most recent moves of the Nigerian province.

On the change to the constitution of the Anglican Church of Nigeria:

"This wording not only removes what the Windsor Report described as "the pivotal" role of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the instrument of unity but perhaps of greater significance challenges the concept of Communion as understood throughout Anglican history. Acceptance of an individual Province's view of orthodoxy becomes the basis for relationship. Further the revision of its Constitution states that in all questions of interpretation of faith and doctrine the decision of the Church of Nigeria shall be final. As a Primate of the Anglican Communion I find the implications of this revision most serious. Am I alone in interpreting such wording as the removal of established bonds of communion and their replacement by a Provincial-only wide authority which will set its own criteria for whoever or whatever it considers worthy of a communion relationship? If this is so I find it is in direct conflict with much of the contents of the Windsor Report but more importantly in conflict with what I term 'the Windsor spirit.' Further I feel it is in direct contrast to the stand taken by the Primates of our Communion in their Dromantine communiqué."

On the announcement of arrangements for Nigerian oversight in other provinces:

"I have to add to these concerns the views of Windsor on the threat to communion of cross-provincial interventions, in cases where parishes are opposed to their diocesan bishop, without agreement and co-operation. This equal threat to 'bonds of affection' is illustrated by Nigeria's intention to establish "Convocations and Chaplaincies" outside Nigeria to cater for "like-minded faithful." Again this intention cuts across the agreed statement at Dromantine by the Primates which placed a moratorium on cross-provincial interventions."

Dr Eames prefaces his remarks by saying they are "essentially personal". But I doubt that he would have made them at this time without some consultation with Lambeth Palace. It must be more likely, now, that the Archbishop of Canterbury will make important statements about his views on the nature and future of the Anglican Communion when he attends the South-South Encounter in Alexandria.

It was amazing to have him with us at Yale. He's a delight. But his message was not at all optimistic.
I worry for the state of the Communion.

The actions of Nigeria are merely one of the first steps in turning a de facto division into a de jure division. To see them as anything less is to misunderstand their importance and impact. However, they did not and do not create the division--it was already there.

Still, they are merely a first step. The shape of the new communion being formed is, at best, hazy. I expect that there will be further actions as time goes by that will create some type of governing body that will determine whether a province meets (or continues to meet) the criteria for continued membership in the new communion. For each member to decide this for itself would create a somewhat chaotic situation. Time will tell.

Nonetheless, to return to my first point, this move should not be interpreted as more or less than what it is. It does not create a division. The divisions were already well entrenched and the communion has, in fact, been "unified" only in form--not in doctrine and practice. Nigeria's action does no more than to give legal form to what were already irreconcileable differences.

Steven

Akinola has stated in the past that his interventions to save souls drowning in liberalism do not occupy the same moral plane as silly rules in the WR re: bishops jurisdiction, even if they do go back to Nicaea. So he has no need to let these rules interfere with his mission from God.

I suppose, though, when Nigeria officially announces that it is no longer in communion with Canterbury, it begins the process of placing itself outside Anglicanism, and the development of a new legal entity.

Yes, rules interfere...

That has been the message coming out of Calvinism for the last 35 years or so.

Strange that people never learn their lessons.

"Yes, rules interfere...That has been the message coming out of Calvinism for the last 35 years or so. Strange that people never learn their lessons."--Göran Koch-Swahne

Past 35 years? More like the past 350 or 400 years.

Though I'm not sure about the current politics, I must say that what Nigeria has stated is really uncontroversial if you read what it says.. Its just the position that many evangelicals and anglo-catholics in ECUSA,. ACCan and CofE take... that we stand by the [more-or-less] historical respect for the souvereignty of Scripture in matters of faith and morality.

As others have moved away from this they have "walked away" from us. The strange thing is that they think that *we* are breaking communion when we react to *their* changes in PRECISELY THE WAY THEY COULD HAVE PREDICTED.

If Dave somehow imagines that the Church universal has not evolved in its understanding, and beliefs, and practices, whether one would want to measure that over two thousand years, or merely close to five hundred years, then he is mistaken. Indeed, parts of Christianity have branched off, from time to time, precisely because of disagreements.

If Canterbury and its supporters are continuing to evolve, and grow, in faith and in the love of Christ, and if Archbishop Akinola and his supporters feel that time must stand still for them, and that different understandings can never take place, then Akinola and his supporters have every right to leave and form their own new branch of Christianity.

It has happened before, and it will, no doubt, happen again.

But, if someone actually wants to be part of a Church that has not changed since shortly after Jesus walked this earth, then he is going to find no branch of Christianity, to my understanding and belief, that has not come to some new understanding since that time.

God gave us minds, and the ability to study and learn, and the ability to pray and discern, for a reason.

Dear Gerald, I didn't say not evolving in understanding what I said was "stand by the [more-or-less] historical respect for the souvereignty of Scripture in matters of faith and morality". Obviously understanding changes, as do cultural and social particulars, and even the way we think about things.

As most evangelicals, traditionalists and ABp Akinola would agree, if we want to be the followers of Jesus (which is all that the Church is) we *have to* follow His teachings on faith and morality.... what else is religion about ? And what better to explain what He meant than the early church's most authentic documents - recorded in the NT ?

We have minds to study, learn and the ability to pray and listen to God - though imperfectly. We are all still human and He is the same God as 2000 years ago; the basics haven't changed, just the context, so neither should the basics of faith and morality!

"Is polygamy thus a greater problem than the current debate about the 'reality' of God? " ++Eames

What if an African or Asian province (where polygamy is legal) consecrates a polygamist as a bishop and another performs marriage rights for those interested in adding spouses? Will the church still go through the same process of ‘understanding’?

At the end of the process, will we be ready to adopt the trend communion wide?

"What if an African or Asian province (where polygamy is legal) consecrates a polygamist as a bishop and another performs marriage rights for those interested in adding spouses? Will the church still go through the same process of ‘understanding’?

"At the end of the process, will we be ready to adopt the trend communion wide?"

Tunde, you set up a strawman here. Let us say that the African/Asian province you posit adopts such an innovation after years of internal theological discussion and does so through its designated canonical means for taking such action. Short of 'adopt[ing] the trend communion wide," and short of breaking cmmunion, there is a third option, namely: the other provinces express disagreement, remain unconvinced, but neither break communion nor feel they are being force to "adopt the trend" themselves; they respect said province's autonomy in doctrinal development while nonetheless safeguarding their own such autonomy, and then observe the fruits of the innovation to determine whether or not it should ever be received in their own province.

This was precisely the pattern with respect to women's ordination (a process of discernment throughout the communion that continues even today, decades after the first ordination of female priests), and it could (and should) have been the pattern likewise as to gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions.

For one province to adopt an innovation in no way compels any other province to adopt it as well, nor should it force a breaking of communion; living in difference for a time, the Holy Spirit will no doubt make clear communion-wide over that time whether the innovation is of God, or is not.

Nadine's points seem all very sensible to me. It need not have gone this way at all if we'd followed the third option she suggests. But other things are involved, including $, which ++Eames alludes to, and egos, and in some cases, not finding ways to accomodate those who disagree within a province or in some cases those who disagree being unwilling to continue with those with whom they disagree no matter what accomodations are offered. Indeed, innovation on such matters as infant baptism happened in this local way. The greater problem is bonds of affection have broken down. Windsor won't fix those. Something other is needed than a juridical approach.

Dear Nadine, interestingly, polygamy is an issue that was thrown up earlier in debate on sexuality - by liberals who were, I think, alluding to the tolerance of the practice by conservative African provinces (and therefore why shouldn't they also tolerate other non-standard marriages such as homosexual marriage?).

As we all know, in Old Testament times there were polygamists who are now considered patriarchs and saints - Abraham, Jacob, King David and Solomon for example. Whereas in NT times the ideal is clearly one man with one woman - no other practice is ever justified, practiced or even descibed. Therefore we see monogamy as being the "holy" way.

I suppose if cultures developed where polygamy was the norm you could make some sort of case for tolerating it... but not approving or encouraging it ! Other provinces would, I think, understand the context and be supportive.

On the other hand, temporary sexual relationships are always clearly rejected in both the OT and NT. As are same-sex sexual relations. If we are to remain true to their teaching we are not free to tolerate such sexual relatioships. The proper response is compassion.. and a call to repentence.
Any province that starts approving and encouraging such relationships has clearly rejected the teachings of the Old and New Testaments. That is a cause of broken communion - and requires discipline, and repentance..

On the 'polygamy' issue. How about successive polygamy in the affluent Northern Hemisphere, i.e., marriage, divorce, remarriage? Even scripture is divided on this issue, comparing Jesus' teaching in Mark's Gospel with the Matthean (an adulterous spouse) and the Pauline exceptions (a Christian convert being married to a pagan spouse, who no longer wishes to be married to the Christian). Ever since NT times the Church has made 'pastoral accommodations' for imperfect human situations, which, strictly speaking, go against the ipsissima verba of Jesus, while considering Jesus' teaching as an ideal to be aspired to.

The last three of the XXXIX Articles of Religion make it clear that the very words of Jesus do not have the 'function' of Law, but that the Church, following reason and tradition, may set them aside. Therefore, Christians may bear arms if their country is at war; respect private property contrary to the communal property paradigm of the Book of Acts, my take oaths, etc.

There is in place a process of moral reasoning which the church may extend to new issues as they arise.

Dear Dave,

The NT ideal explicitly upheld may be (lifelong; see John Henry's excellent point above re divorce) marriage between one man and one woman. But it does not inherently follow from that that any variation from that ideal is inherently sinful, as opposed to merely less-than-ideal; and indeed, it further does not follow that other variations such as same-sex unions or even (egalitarian forms of) polygamy (e.g., modern polyamory) are necessarily even less than ideal -- as opposed to, say, divorce, which is outright condemned by Our Lord in a way that He never did as to these other unions.

I commend to you the following excellent piece for reading and prayerful reflection (though it may profoundly challenge many of your most dearly held assumptions):

http://www.melwhite.org/biblesays.html

John Henry, your example of 'polygamy' is unconvincing unless one is an indissolubilist; and it is clear from Eastern Orthodoxy (which recognises divorce and remarriage) that the Roman claim has never commanded universal assent.
Your claim that Mark conflicts with Matthew is *formally correct, but David Instone Brewer argues in his monographs that there is no real difference, that Matthew renders explicit what Mark understood in the Hillel-Shammai debate. The Pharisees' question in Mark 10.2 would make no sense otherwise, since everyone already knew trhat divorce was permitted by the Law of Moses. The issue was divorce 'for any reason' (kata pasan aitian - not expressed in Mark but implied).
The Articles of Religion are not going against Jesus' teaching or setting it aside 'for pastoral reasons'; they are simply trying to follow a whole-biblical theology against the highly christomonistic claims of the Anabaptists. If Jesus was understood as forbidding his followers from bearing arms (as a strict construction of his words in Matt 26.52 might suggest), then no Christian could serve the state as soldier or policeman; but Paul doesn't think so in Romans 13. Neither does Acts 2.44 command a community of goods (and here the Articles explicitly criticise the Anabaptists' claims).
It is going beyond the evidence, however, to say that Jesus' words never have the character of law. The dominical utterances are precisely that. I don't think it is right to speak of the church making 'pastoral accommodations' for those unable or unwilling to live up to Jesus' teachings. It is more a matter of recognising the context in which Jesus often spoke (in controversy with the Pharisees) and the 'extreme' figures of speech he used. Literal hatred of parents and cutting off of hands was not part of his message, as even the Anabaptists understood! Origen? Well ...

Dear Dave:

Thanks for responding to my Oct 15th posted reaction to your Oct 14th comments, but you just don’t seem to get even the concept of an evolving understanding of Scripture and traditions.

Nobody has “walked away” from you and the Akinolaites, but many Provinces have come to a different understanding than yours.

There is nothing wrong with Archbishop Akinola being unable to accept interpretations different than his own, but there is something wrong with him trying to impose his standards on everybody else.

The Church has changed over time, and has come to different appreciations of what Jesus actually said and meant. Yet, divisions continues, and, as we are witnessing today, they will continue in the future as men and women of faith, and good will, find themselves at crossroads with differing interpretations.

Perhaps we will be adding the Church at Abuja to the Church at Canterbury, and the Church at Rome, and the Church at Constantinople, and at so many other evidences of past divisions.

I do wish you and your fellow believers well, but I would rather proceed with the great mission of the Church universal, and end the bickering. There are more important things to do, and I suspect that neither of us will persuade the other of his “errors.”

Jerry

If my wife has with pain and suffering endured my past indescretions and when I inform her I'm planning on some futher indescretion (only I don't regard it as such) and she tells me if I go through with it our bonds of affection will be stretched beyond their limits, why should I be suprised that she is no longer willing to walk with me?

As to the Southern Hemisphere acting because of love of conservative Anglican money, I am saddened to see Eames repeat such unsubstantiated nonsense. Several years ago Bp. Spong started down this road with his false charge that African Bishops were bought with Chicken dinners to oppose Western liberal innovations in the church. Why would someone who claims to be working in the interest of reconciliation make such a claim? Does he have any evidence of such, or bearing false witness?

Nadine:

Thank you for posting the reference to Walter Wink's biblical perspective on human sexuality. His is a scholarly rebuttal of Dr. Robert Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexuality (2002). Of course, Dr. Gagnon is the traditionalists' "nuclear" option or one of their "blazing swords" to keep gays and lesbians out of their "true" Church of God.

Nadine, the Wink piece you linked to actually goes back to 1998 or earlier, before Gagnon published. Wink subsequently reviewed Gagnon's book and Gagnon replied to Wink's arguments about the so-called 'Holiness Code' in great detail. It's linked here:

http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/gagnon3.pdf

Warning: it's 12,000 words long and interacts with every one of Wink's claims and a lot more.
John H, your admonition that Gagnon is 'the (conservatives') 'nuclear' option or 'blazing sword' to keep gays and lesbians out of their 'true' Church of God' is an example of the logical fallacy of 'poisoning the well' with ad hominem attacks designed to distract people from even considering his writings. You surely know that his book has received plaudits for its scholarship and rigor of argument from people like Marti Nissinen and James Barr, who would hold much more liberal views than Gagnon.
Gagnon's website holds a huge stock of materials freely available for consulting.
John, what do you think of Instone Brewer's handling of the texts on marriage and divorce, mentioned above? I know you like the 'pastoral accommodation' idea, but I don't think that is what is going on in the NT. The idea that Jesus would set 'impossible ideals' doesn't square with Matt 5.17-20.

Nadine, a question, please:

You stated: 'it ... does not follow that other variations such as same-sex unions or even (egalitarian forms of) polygamy (e.g., modern polyamory) are necessarily even less than ideal -- as opposed to, say, divorce, which is outright condemned by Our Lord in a way that He never did as to these other unions.'
Are you saying here that polygamy or polyamory would be right for Christians in certain circumstances?

Mr. Beaton:

I am not familiar with Instone Brewer's handling of the "Matthean exception." Edward J. Mally, SJ, in the Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968) on Mark 10, alternates between the position you ascribe to I. Brewer and the one I hinted at above, while John L. McKenzie, commenting on Matthew 19:1-12, in the JBC, ultimately comes down on the idea of pastoral accommodation along the lines of the Shammai position. J. Paul Sampley in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7, in the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary, Vol. 10 (2002), is insistent that Paul's intention was that of pastoral accommodation.

On the matter of bearing arms, which goes against the ipsissima verba of Jesus, one might do well to pursue ancient Roman records relating to Christians serving in the Roman legions. Given the "emperor cult", especially in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, anyone who proclaimed Jesus as 'O KYRIOS was saying, in effect, that Caesar was not. That was one of the reasons why Christians would not be eligible for military service in addition to, and apart from, the teachings of Jesus about turning the other cheek and those taking the sword perishing by the sword. In terms of available records, one of the early edicts at the beginning of the Diocletian (Great) Persecution specifically banished Christians from the Roman military and civil service, which proves that some Christians, during the third century, had reinterpreted Christ's teaching with regard to the use of force, deeming it to be legitimate. The whole history of Christian thought about what constitutes a "just war" is a telling example about the Church wrestling with the very words of Jesus, determining whether they have the function of law or stand above law as a first-order principle of the Gospel, while second-order rules made by the Church deal with imperfect human (sinful) situations, providing for pastoral accommodations, while the Church did not abandon the first-order principle. In that context, the Eastern Orthodox extended Paul's permission for a widowed spouse to remarry by recognizing the "spiritual" death of a marriage, permitting a Christian to remarry after divorce, while, at the same time, upholding the Gospel principle of the indissolubility of a Christian marriage.

Gordon R Dunstan, one-time professor of Moral Tehology at London University and colleague of E.L. Mascall, was right in his analysis of the words of Jesus not having the 'function' of law in his "The Artifice of Ethics" (Moorhouse Lectures - 1973).

John H, you can read David Instone Brewer on Divorce and Remarraige in the 1st Century here:

http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Brewer/Grove.htm

This is a taster for much more detailed work, that goes far beyond what Mally wrote in 1968. Do read it - it makes sopem very important points. I have never heard that the Orthodox Church considered marriage ipso facto to be indissolubilist. I have generally thought that to be alter Western belief.
As for military service, since Jesus commended the faith of a centurion and Cornelius became a Christian, without any suggestion that either had to give up soldiering, it would be strange to think that Jesus was 'outlawing' that in his words about arms.
But the Dominical 'ego de lego humin' sayings are very much like law-making.

Jerry Hannon wrote "Dear Dave: .... you just don’t seem to get even the concept of an evolving understanding of Scripture and traditions."

Dear Jerry, It's not that I don't understand you methodology, it's much worse than that... I don't agree with it!

Nadine Kwong wrote: "..... it does not inherently follow from that that any variation from that ideal is inherently sinful... I commend to you ...(though it may profoundly challenge many of your most dearly held assumptions).."

Dear Nadine, In my understanding, God calls us to become like Him. Any ""falling short" of the ideal is sin... Hence we are all inherently sinful!

ps you may have noticed that my dearly held assumptions are regularly challenged by contributors to TA. I like it ;-) ... I need to keep my thinking straight! and in any case, current society is similarly challenging if you are trying to remain faithful to evangelical/traditional Christianity !

Mr. Beaton:

With regard to the early Christians and military service, I would recommend that you read William Klassen's brief summary on "The Early Church and the Military" under: "War in the NT" in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol.6, ed. David Noel Freedman (1992). One of his references, Robert M. Grant, presents evidence that "Jesus' pronouncements about non-resistance left an indelible impression on the minds of the early Christians. Early Christian theologians condemned murder and cited war as a prime instance. Manuals of church discipline refused to allow for the possibility of military service, and insisted that upon conversion a soldier had to leave the (Roman) army" (1970).

In all probability that's what Cornelius did after his conversion, although Luke's account, in Acts, is silent on what happened to Cornelius after his baptism by St. Peter. As late as the 4th century, St. Martin of Tours, a Christian in the military, was so revolted by the use of violence in his time that he left the Roman army because, as he said: "It is not lawful for me to fight."

Von Camphausen, having researched Roman and patristic texts, does not find any reference to Christians in the military until about AD 175. Christian resistance to military service was a function of resistance to "emperor worship" and of obedience to the ipsissima verba of Jesus. Bishop NT Wright has written extensively about "emperor worship" as a serious factor during the history of the early Church, which competed with the Christian mission ("to say that Jesus is 'O KYRIOS is saying that Casar is not!").

It was in conjunction with a process of moral reasoning (e.g., the question of self-defense and maintenance of order in civil society) that the Church set aside the ipsissima verba of Jesus and developed "just war" theories, which underly Article XXVII of the XXIX Articles of Religion.

"Dear Jerry, It's not that I don't understand you methodology, it's much worse than that... I don't agree with it!"

Dear Dave, it's not my methodology, as you would try to put it; it is the historical fact about the Church universal, from its earliest days, to current times.

The Church learns, through study and prayer, and usually it changes as a result of such learning. That's the methodology of the Church, and not something of my personal creation.

Otherwise, I suppose that the Akinolaites intend to reinstate heresy charges against Galileo, and that they would hold that anyone who believes that the Earth was created in more than seven (Earth) days, is also guilty of serious error.

I do accept the fact, as I think I made clear, that you and I will not agree on the current issues dividing parts of the Church, but history is history, and the understanding and beliefs of the Church have changed over time. Even Rome has changed, and certainly Canterbury has changed.

I respect your differing views, which is why I feel it inevitable that the Church will have a new division, as it has had so many times over the past two thousand years. For my part, I continue to stand with Canterbury.

John H, I'm sure you're right about the later problematic character of Christian involvement in the Roman army, but my point was simply that it wasn't evidently an issue in the first generation, when Christianity was a religio licita, indistinguishable in Roman eyes from Judaism. I see no evidence at all for the assumption that Cornelius resigned upon his conversion. Of course, by AD 66 things had changed completely in Judea, with the onset of the Jewish War, and it would be difficult to imagine a convert or proselyte staying in the army then. (Not impossible, though, since Josephus did a Benedict Arnold.) When we consider next the persecutions under Nero, Domitian and Trajan, it is hardly surprising that we find no evidence for that period of Christians in the Roman army: after all, they had the task of hunting down this banned group. 'Emperor worship', as far as I know, begins with Nero, not Tiberius. It would be interesting to know how many Jews besides Josephus fought for Rome.
So, my point simply is that in the first generation (c. 30-66), it would certainly not have been impossible for a Roman soldier to have embraced Christianity and remained in his profession. Did the centurion at the cross become a Christian? Or the soldiers Paul witnessed to in the Praetorian guard and on his ship to Rome? I can understand that in later times of persecution, Christians would have taken Jesus' words at the Last Supper as some proscription of military service, but I find no evidence that they were taken that way in the beginning. Perhaps there is an analogy from our times, when Christians in the Soviet Union, excluded from the politeia, might console themselves 'My kingdom is not of this world'.

Dear Jerry, Maybe it was a mistake.. (or maybe it'll help you to stop reducing Anglicanism to loyalty to whoever is Archbishop of Canterbury) but, interestingly, the ABofC sent a note of greetings to the 3rd Anglican Latin America Conference Creciendo Juntos that just met in Jaboatao dos Guararapes (near Recife) PE Brazil from 9-12 October 2005... where clergy and people from Chile and Argentina from The Province of The Southern Cone of Latin America, and the dioceses of Recife (ie Bp Cavalcanti & co) gathered to experience fellowship and exchange ministries and visions..

Dear Dave, I find your statement, begun by "Maybe it was a mistake.. (or maybe it'll help you to stop reducing Anglicanism to loyalty to whoever is Archbishop of Canterbury)" to be interesting, but essentially devoid of logic.

Just as the rather monolithic Roman Catholic Church is led by the Bishop of Rome, the Anglican Church, and the affiliated Anglican Communion, is led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. You seem to be suggesting a Communion that would be without any titular head, or any First Among Equals.

That would seem to be an effort to redefine the Anglican Communion to suit the interests of the Nigerian Primate.

For me, and most Anglicans, it will be Canterbury, and not Abuja.

But I do not dismiss the honestly-felt beliefs of those who will chose to depart and go with Abuja; I simply, but very strongly, disagree with them.

This is just one more division over the course of two thousand years, and it will not be the last.

Bye for a few days.