George Will Eats, Dumps and Leaves

To echo what seems to be a popular sentiment, I enjoy George Will's typically penetrating insights as he applies his formidable intellect to matters of politics and baseball. His most recent column--on Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church--, however, falls far short of the standard he is known for, taking half-truths, substituting analogy for theology, and smugly taking aim at his real target: "progressive politics."

Will says that the Episcopal Church has become "tolerant to the point of incoherence" and intent on furthering what he derisively refers to as "inclusiveness." Doctrinal elasticity, he claims, has caused a dwindling following, secessionist dioceses, and a rift within the broader Anglican Communion.

As George Will might say: well.

First, as Lutheran Zephyr points out, this drive-by piece begins by misrepresenting Luther, attributing to him a manufactured ideology of "the primacy of individual judgment and conscience":

For Luther it was not his individuality but the Word of God which called him to take his stand. Luther viewed the power structure of the Roman Church as corrupt and failing to live up to its God-given mandate, but he never called for that power vacuum to be filled with raging individuality. Rather, he and his fellow Reformers affirmed the conscience-binding authority of the early ecumenical councils, the creeds, Scripture, and - most importantly - the Living Word of God that those creeds, councils and Scripture proclaim. Rather than asserting "the primacy of individual judgment" as Mr. Will claims, Luther asserted the primacy of the Word of God in one of the most beloved slogans of the Reformation - Word Alone. Quibble what you will with the impact of Luther's claims and the ways in which his successors used (or abused!) his legacy, Luther was no modern individualist.

It is the primacy of scripture that Luther advocated which underpins Protestantism, not, as LZ calls it, "a theological free-for-all, choose-your-own-adventure approach to ministry and faith." In fact, it is precisely an overindulgence in individualistic interpretations of Scripture that has arguably led to the proliferation of secessionist movements in Protestantism since Luther's time.

I came to Anglicanism from a conservative evangelical denomination that depended myopically on the primacy of Scripture. Myopic because that denomination like many of its ilk split voraciously on differences of scriptural interpretation, large and small. From disagreeing on evolution to the "proper" role of women to whether instruments are permissible in worship, arguments about how to "rightly" interpret Scripture frequently hinged on who yelled the loudest. And, just as frequently, these disagreements led factions to break-away, secure in the knowledge that they were the "true believers."

The reason I came to Anglicanism was that it represented a sensible way out of the quandary that two reasonable individuals might heartily disagree on how to interpret any given Scripture. Churches in the Anglican Communion are distinguished by their sharing few, broad characteristics, such as the use of the Book of Common Prayer and a belief that Scripture is God's word for us on earth. What Anglicanism does not require, however, is that one believe a laundry list of doctrines, precisely because to do so would fossilize interpretations made in a certain time and place, leading to untold quarrels over the modern-day applicability of this or that tenet, whether now or at some future point.

The question of homosexuality has been angrily debated in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Will says:

It is not the secessionists such as Duncan who are, as critics charge, obsessed with homosexuality. The Episcopal Church's leadership is latitudinarian -- tolerant to the point of incoherence, Duncan and kindred spirits think -- about clergy who deviate from traditional church teachings concerning such core doctrines as the divinity of Christ, the authority of Scripture and the path to salvation. But the national church insists on the ordination of openly gay clergy and on blessing same-sex unions.

The last sentence betrays Will's (and others') ignorance of the Episcopal Church's structure and laws. There is no "national church," at least, not in the sense that he means. Rather,

The Episcopal Church is governed by a Constitution and a set of laws (known as “canons”) which it establishes for itself by Convention, but the diocesan bishop is the ecclesiastical (or “church”) authority in his or her particular diocese. The bishops of the Episcopal Church have no jurisdiction outside of their dioceses, so they meet together twice per year to pray and make decisions about the life of the Church. Every nine years, the Church elects a “Presiding Bishop” who represents the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion and “presides” over meetings of the bishops, known as the “House of Bishops.”
(www.episcopalchurch.org)

My emphasis. Gene Robinson was elected Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire--a choice of members of that Diocese and that Diocese alone. The "national church" has limited powers of ratification--limited because they are enumerated in the Church canons--and could/should only have overruled the Diocesan election in certain limited situations. It would have been improper activism if the delegates to the Convention had suddenly expanded the canons to include a litmus test on sexual orientation.

If you note similarities between constitutional conservatism (of the sort George Will espouses) and the Episcopal tradition, this is no accident. After all, what Will calls "America's upper crust" was once the same group that gave us both.