Source: Covenant
We shared yesterday Ruth Gledhill’s story of how litigation involving Dr. Elaine Storkey, who is also the chair of Fulcrum, is broadening into a theological dispute that will be the subject of legal inquiry later this year. The backdrop of this legal battle is the division between conservative Anglicans exemplified by the global furor over the proposed GAFCON meeting, which many see as an effort to subvert this year’s Lambeth Conference.
It’s not unusual for Anglicans to be divided these days. But what’s tragic is that the division that is the context of both of these controversies is mostly between conservative and ‘open’ evangelicals, two groups who share a lot of common ground. In what follows, I hope to gesture towards what I believe is a major cause of the division. If I am correct, then the current controversies may portend a widening conflict in which human sexuality is no longer the presenting issue. For at the heart of these controversies is a dispute over the nature and implications of the Gospel itself for Christian ethical conduct and the ordering of the Church.
It seems that many conservatives confuse the concept of an “open” evangelical, as the term is used in England, with the way “open” is sometimes used in North America to refer to a pro-Gay stance. “Open evangelicalism” does not mean one is open on issues of human sexuality or any other matters of Christian ethics. I write to propose a way of understanding this concept that I believe is pertinent to the situation at Wycliffe Hall but also helps us to understand tensions between self-described ‘orthodox’ Christians who, were their disagreements not so passionate on this particular issue, would likely be fast friends.
Dale Rye has expressed wonderfully the complexity of legal issues that are apparently factors in the employment dispute between Elaine Storkey and her employers. However, the battle at Wycliffe Hall seems, based on what I can gather from the public record, to be at heart a battle between two different parties who self-identify as evangelicals, but who disagree fundamentally on how the Gospel calls us to behave in the encounter with our neighbors. The tensions between us evangelicals are similarly at heart a profound disagreement between two different parties who self-identify as evangelicals theologically (although most of us at Covenant also self-identify as ‘catholic’ theologically) about how Scripture calls us to behave in the encounter with our neighbors, particularly in the event that we believe them to be advocates of teachings established as heresy or apostasy.
Before going further, let me be quite clear about the nature of the Covenant writers since there seems to be some misinformation out there, and also to introduce an illustrative example of the fault line that is my concern. All but a few of us Covenanters, if I correctly understand the public confessions of my colleagues, have a conservative view of human sexuality as articulated in Lambeth 98 Resolution 1.10. That means, to quote partially from that conciliar resolution, that all but a few of us are on record as agreeing with the teaching that,
“rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex.”
The few among us who disagree with that particular clause are among the many of our Episcopal and Anglican brethren worldwide who in humility claim uncertainty about the truth of our human sexuality. I think a lot of the Windsor bishops share that humility. Indeed, I think that such uncertainty exists on a spectrum in every province of the Communion. On theological grounds, they see room for the possibility of an important Christian witness for those who self-identify as homosexuals, and they see a possible interpretation of Scripture that warrants such a witness. This locates them within the constellation of three of Anglicanism’s finest theologians, Oliver O’Donovan, Rowan Williams, and Stanley Hauerwas. O’Donovan is a fascinating example here, for one would be hard pressed to discredit him as anything other than an orthodox evangelical. But read his “Good News for Gay Christians” in which he articulates a point quite similar, albeit in his unique idiom, to the conclusions that our Covenant moderates have argued. But that is not the point, really. The point is that, in spite of their confessed uncertainty, each of these theologians and priests, insofar as I can tell, embrace the “mind of the Communion” on this matter and constrain their own teaching. in accordance with this consensus. That is what the Communion has asked of them and that is what they do.
Therefore, even though they personally have reservations about our understanding of what Scripture demands in the area of human sexuality, they, support “the Windsor and Covenant Processes,” as Archbishop Rowan Williams has asked all the bishops to commit to as they prepare for Lambeth next summer—that is, to continue working constructively with the Windsor Report and the Covenant draft as tools for the development of appropriate “structures” for our common life, and to accept the constraints on Christian behavior articulated in those documents “until a new consensus emerges.” That is a very important distinction. This means that at minimum, due to their understanding of how Anglicans resolve theological differences, they are not conducting or advocating same-sex blessings themselves and they are not seeking the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals. They are complying with Windsor at the local level.
Let’s be quite clear on this point: Covenant does not endorse or ally with those who, in spite of the Windsor Report’s constraints, continue to advocate same-sex blessings or ordination of gays in their public roles. Every one of the Covenant writers prays that the Lord will correct TEC of our errors and sustain us through the discipline that teaches us to walk in the ways of the Lord. We support the Windsor Report and the Covenant process as the way to order our common life.
Nonetheless some have challenged the wisdom of our including in our community a few writers who disagree with the rest on the issue of human sexuality. These interlocutors claim we “collaborate with heretics.” And this is where the tensions between us and our interlocutors intersect with Elaine Storkey’s dispute with Wycliffe Hall, and where the significance of the term “open evangelical” becomes clear. For the dispute is not at all about Scriptural authority - I believe we stand shoulder to shoulder on that - , but rather the dispute is about what Scripture teaches us about how we are to interact with our neighbor when we have profound differences over doctrine grounded in that authority. Do we avoid the differences by separating from our neighbor? Do we shun our neighbor? Is there a difference between the discipline mandated by Scripture in the encounter with heresy and apostasy and the path of permanent structural separation that terminates fellowship? And how does Scripture tell us to go about resolving these questions? The answers we give to these questions point to the distinction between an “open evangelical” and a “conservative evangelical.”
I introduce the example of the tensions between Covenanters and some of our conservative interlocutors because it is raises this question of discipline. They feel that it is wrong to collaborate with those who they feel are heretics. Suspending judgment on the question of whether or not someone complying with Windsor’s constraints can rightly be thought of as heretics, let us consider the question of what is meant by discipline in the encounter with heresy. Discipline is about ordering the life of the community of faith. The Covenant example presents a specific question: does discipline mean we are not to address our fellow baptized Christians on an Internet blog? Does addressing others on an Internet blog who you deem to be apostate really constitute “collaboration” with apostasy?
We at Covenant follow Augustine on this. Augustine argued fiercely with the Donatists he deemed to be heretics. Indeed, he met for lengthy debates with them in a public forum, arguing with them day after day, hearing their views and laying out his own in their dispute over critical issues of church ordering and sin. Unless we have a rarefied view of our blogs, we Covenanters believe - and I propose that this is fundamental to ‘open evangelicalism’ generally - that there is a distinction between discipline within the ordered community we call the church and the public forums like blogs and universities where we wrestle together with the questions life presents.
I think one of the points of divergence among self-described orthodox Anglicans - in our understanding of what constitutes this ordering for the good of the church - has to do with our understanding of what constitutes “theological integrity.” I suggest that an “open evangelical” will follow the teaching of our current Archbishop of Canterbury on this, when he says:
Having integrity, then, is being able to speak in a way that allows of answers. Honest discourse permits response and continuation; it invites collaboration by showing that it does not claim to be, in and of itself, final. It does not seek to prescribe the tone, the direction, or even the vocabulary of a response. And it does all this by showing in its own working a critical self-perception, displaying the axioms to which it believes itself accountable; that is to say, it makes it clear that it accepts, even within its own terms of reference, that there are ways in which it may be questioned and criticized….When it resists debate and transmutation, claiming that it may prescribe exactly what the learning of its skills should lead to, it is open to the suspicion that its workings are no longer answerable to what they claim to answer to: the further determinant has been added of the need to safeguard the power that licenses this kind of talk; and thus integrity disappears.
Rowan Williams’ conception of theological integrity, with which I suppose Oliver O’Donovan would agree, animates Covenant’s decision to include in our number writers who may disagree personally with us on theological grounds provided that they commit to the constraints that Rowan himself articulates in several of his letters, and that the primates commend to us in the Windsor Report as amended in the Primates Meeting. It is an act of theological integrity to have honest discourse with such theologians in order to remain answerable, to make clear that there are ways in which our understanding of what God intends in the gift of human sexuality is imperfect and may be questioned and criticized.
Moreover, we derive from this conception of theological integrity the principle that we cannot be ourselves without those who are different from us. Honest discourse with those to whom we remain answerable is part of our subjection to the community of faith’s judgment. Judgment is not to be avoided but sought after, for judgment is salvation. Judgment is the tool of the Sculptor, chipping away at that which is untrue in us so that the truth about us revealed in Christ emerges. Therefore, we don’t need to insist that all in our fellowship be like us. We can and should be ‘open’ to other witnesses to the triune God in our community - in the sense of being answerable to such witnesses - for the Church is that through which the Word generates the diversity we experience as Easter in our lives. It is not necessary that all in our community be conservative in order to be right thinking or to exhibit right worship or right living. Theological integrity demands being ‘open’ in this sense to other witnesses.
It seems that this same issue of theological integrity animates Elaine Storkey’s concerns with the changes at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, insofar as one can tell from her words and those of the other (is it eight now?) scholars, including Alister McGrath, who have departed in recent months.
But that’s not all. An “open evangelical” also disagrees fundamentally with a so-called “conservative” evangelical in the understanding of how the Gospel calls us to relate to our neighbor, even when that neighbor is engaged in sin, confused by heresy, or lost in apostasy. There is no dispute regarding the necessity of discipline within the Church at such times. I think both ‘open” and “conservative” evangelicals agree that discipline is the means by which the Church maintains the life of integrity that enables her witness to the triune God. However there is a profound dispute over what the Gospel demands of us in our relationship with others at all times, including our encounters with sin, heresy, and apostasy.
An “open evangelical” is especially informed by Paul’s insistence that to be “in Christ” is to live the cruciform life (e.g. Gal 2:20 ff). The word “open” comes from this foundational claim of evangelicals. “Openness” describes how we are to relate to others in all cases, period. We are to practice the habit of “openness” (or, as Rowan Williams calls it, “relational receptivity”), a habit made possible by the gift of the Spirit but which can only be learned through participation in the community of persons pledged to Christ as Lord. This habit of openness thus begins with the triune God, and, in response to God’’s gifts to us of identity , freedom, and existence, strives to imitate God’s open reception of humankind on the Cross. Therefore, in the encounter with our neighbor, or, rather, prior to the encounter with our neighbor, we love. That is, we receive our neighbor with an openness to her that is undetermined by her, offering ourselves in benevolent relation to her. We strive to be that non-competitive, non-negotiating presence to her who cannot be threatened, before whom she need never defend herself, who actively receives and celebrates her as one unique and different from ourselves. And, in so doing, we give her, as Rowan says, “the space of freedom, which is existence.”
As the gifting of existence - that is, as the practice by which one gives the gift of relational space where another can simply be, evangelical openness also is the gift of space within which another can become. For, in offering ourselves as that relational space in which another can freely be, we give the gift of Christ to another. This is how Christians are to relate to their neighbors, for we are corporately and personally engaged, through the Spirit, (again quoting Rowan) “in constructing each other’s humanity, bringing one another into the inheritance of power and liberty whose form is defined by Jesus.”
Therefore, an “open evangelical” believes that faithfulness to the Gospel demands an “evangelical openness” to another person even in the encounter of sin, heresy, and apostasy. Conservatives evangelicals, it seems, confuse this evangelical openness to the neighbor with acceptance of the neighbor’s sin, heresy, or apostasy. But evangelical openness does not accept sin, heresy, or apostasy at all. Scripture demands that the community discipline such departures from the ways of the Lord so that the lost one can discover and rediscover the gospel truth that they are found. “Evangelical openness” means that, in spite of the requirement for such community-sanctioned, community-administered, and public discipline for the sake of the Church’s integrity, the relation of the evangelical to the lost is undetermined by the fact of their being lost. Because imitating Christ’s cruciform life means that we strive to be at all times that non-competitive, non-negotiating presence to our neighbors in analogy to the triune God’s relation to us. In other words, in advance, we commit ourselves to be those whose presence to our neighbor, subject to the public discipline necessary to preserve the holiness of our community and aimed always at reconciliation and reunion with our neighbor, is never dependent on our neighbor.
That, I suggest, is what is meant by the term “open evangelical” as it is used in England. And the understanding that the Gospel mandates this evangelical openness, this cruciform witness that defines the very meaning and purpose of the community-sanctioned and public discipline necessary for the Church’s witness to the triune God, is the foundation of Covenant. I infer the same is true of Fulcrum and the ACI, as well. This is where we differ profoundly from our conservative evangelical interlocutors. And, as far as I can tell from the public record, that has a lot to do with the theological difference that generates the tension at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, at least in the case of the renowned Elaine Storkey.
And I imagine it is the heart of the division that is now so painful and visible among evangelicals who, in most times, would be kindred spirits.