In many ways it is reminiscent of the founding of our Church when the profound insensitivity of English bishops to American missionary needs forced faithful congregations to seek alternative oversight.
The Executive Committee of the American Anglican Council has engaged in some interesting historical interpretation. The connection made in the statement about the recent consecrations in Singapore suffers from the same fatal flaw as the Marxist Critique of History - allowing ideology to reconstruct the presentation of past events.
At the time of the American Revolution there were no Bishops on what was to become the United States. In fact the American Colonialist had successfully beaten off any attempt to establish Episcopacy on these shores. Our forebear's in the faith chose to live under the tenable jurisdiction of the Bishop of London with direct oversight from the suffergan of Fulham. When Samuel Seabury arrived in London the Province of the American Church did not exist and the English hierarchy was confronted with a vision of governance which was novel and not easily adapted to by the State Church. Unlike the Non-jurors, Seabury's reason for not talking an oath to the crown had nothing to do with who sat on the throne or previous oaths taken but the understanding, as an American National that he no longer owed allegiance to the British crown.
To its credit the English hierarchy found a way to consecrate White, Provoost, and Madison within three years of Seabury's ordination, thus insuring the future of an independent American Province. The Singapore Consecrations will inject two men into a totally different situation. To equate these irregular consecrations with that of Seabury, is facile, reckless and bad history. Even the poorest of catechized Episcopalians should recognize this reach for legitimacy for what it is -- untenable.
In my humble opinion, this "crisis" is about big ego's all around. On the one hand the American Bishops should be ashamed of their inability to give real alternatives to those who are threaten and marginalized by current discussions and events in the Church. On the other hand those who are so sure of their orthodoxy (something of an oxymoron in a heterodox Church) should be ashamed of their implicit judgementalism and their tendency to assume the worst intentions on the part of faithful Episcopalians who are struggling to come to terms with issues of human sexuality in ways no less part of the Anglican tradition than those claimed by them.
For those who see this move as a means toward reform it occurs to me that Bishops have seldom been at the center of it in our tradition. I am reminded of the impact which the likes of Charles Simeon, John Keble and William Wilberforce had on the life of the Church and its Gospel witness. I am also reminded of the role Bishops played in subverting the work of John and Charles Wesley. Faithfulness in the context of covenanted relationship has always been the locus for the reformation we are all called to. Those who encourage and equip others in this pilgrimage are the leaders I look for and pray to see in our Church.
Fr. William Willoughby, III
The Very Reverend William Willoughby, III
St. Paul's, Savannah
Episcopal Diocese of Georgia
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