Here is a news story about the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process, with which I've been involved as a member of the Reference Group. Watch the videos, too.
This is a hopeful future for the Anglican Communion, a way that rests on building consequential relationships rather than invoking "relational consequences."
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Last night's Bill Moyers interview with Jonathan Haidt was a superb example of rational analysis of issues. A primary theme of getting people to talk across their differences without polarizing demonizations reminded me very strongly of the goal of the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process.
Have a look.
Jonathan Haidt Explains Our Contentious Culture from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSGI'm awaiting further confirmation of this but the Diocese of Derby (UK) Twitter feed shows that the vote on the Anglican Covenant was decidedly negative:
Bishops: for 0; against 1 (bishop Humphrey not present)I'm terrible at maths, but that seems an overwhelming No. Derby has been an Indaba partner with New York and Mumbai (India) and according to the Twitter feed comments on the debate the Indaba experience contributed to the negative vote. This is natural, because Indaba represents the ideals the Covenant lauds but paradoxically disables in its notorious Section 4.
Clergy: for 1, against 21, abstention 2
Laity. for 2, against 24, absention 1
The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an Advent Letter to the Primates of the Communion, and in it made some comments about the proposed Anglican Covenant, in which he clarifies that
it outlines a procedure, such as we urgently need, for attempting reconciliation and for indicating the sorts of consequences that might result from a failure to be fully reconciled...It alters no Province’s constitution, as it has no canonical force independent of the life of the Provinces. It does not create some unaccountable and remote new authority but seeks to identify a representative group that might exercise a crucial advisory function.Once again we are presented with something "urgently" needed, but which ultimately creates nothing new, more, or other than a procedure for giving advice as to how to get along, or face the consequences of not getting along. One of the reasons the Archbishop offers for adopting the Covenant is the supposed greater "coherence" following these advisory processes will bring about, allowing us better to interact with other Christian bodies.
We should bear in mind that our coherence as a Communion is also a significant concern in relation to other Christian bodies – especially at a moment when the renewed dialogues with Roman Catholics and Orthodox have begun with great enthusiasm and a very constructive spirit.But, of course, this "coherence" will only arise if and when disagreeable provinces of the Communion settle their disagreements — for which the Covenant, once again, provides only advice and the exercise of what amounts to peer pressure to conform — or those who continue to resist this pressure are edged out of being "representative" of Anglicanism towards these other supposedly more "coherent" ecclesial bodies.
I continue to ask what alternatives there are if we want to agree on ways of limiting damage, managing conflict and facing with honesty the actual effects of greater disunity. In the absence of such alternatives, I must continue to commend the Covenant as strongly as I can to all who are considering its future.I can, of course, think of any number of "alternatives" to what I continue to see as a deeply flawed and, by its own self-confession, ineffectual effort at conflict management:
What happens to the church, or a Communion, when it takes its eyes off Christ.
The full text of the sermon.
TSH+
There is a legal fiction (or perhaps illegal fiction) at work in so much of the discussion surrounding the Anglican Covenant Process. The fiction is that the Covenant is not about specific issues, but is intended to provide a way to deal with issues of disagreement as they arise. (A description far better applied to the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process.)
The problem is that the Covenant sprouts in lineal descent from the Windsor Report which just might have been used as a beginning of a neutral process had it not fatally "specified" itself as really being about gay bishops, same-sex blessings, and border-crossings, by calling for moratoria on these three doings. These "issues" became part of the genome of the Covenant Process, and have passed along to all of the descendants, even though not "expressed" in the phenotype. The Covenant appears to be a generic tool, but everyone knows it was created to deal with a particular set of problems. (That it has been attenuated, due to ecclesiastical environmental effects, in its ability to deal with those problems to the satisfaction of some of its progenitors only makes for more confusion. Some of them are prepared, upon its adoption, to do some quick therapeutic adjustments to encourage the expression of the suppressed genes.)
In the meantime, it is perfectly possible for the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow no butter to soften in his mouth, and plausibly to deny that the text of the Covenant says anything at all about punitive measures, and so on; but the process that has informed the Covenant is rife with calls for discipline, either the self-discipline of restraint or the heteronomous discipline of "relational consequences." The bad seed is there, and it will breed true in bearing bitter fruit.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
It is a sad fact of news reporting — and I confess to the extent I am a reporter of news I am as guilty as the next person — that bad news rises to the top of awareness while good news settles out of sight.
I have no excuse in this particular instance of good news, and can only plead the same Anglican Covenant Fixation that has taken over much of the Anglican Blogoleum for the last few weeks.
This obsessive/compulsive fixation has allowed some good news to slip by relatively quietly. I must make amends and point to the recent report of yet another positive round of discussions as part of the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process.
Ironically, I firmly believe that the "poor cousin" Continuing Indaba is much more likely to prove of actual utility in holding the Communion together than the Anglican Covenant could or will. It is well that Dr Williams supports both so strongly, and if I were to be cynical I might even think the was hedging his bets, and perhaps even pushing the showy Covenant (a so-far fruitless fig tree making a big show of leaves) and allowing the Continuing Indaba to do its good work as a seed planted and germinating, and whose fruit will produce thirty-, sixty- and a hundred-fold in days to come.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The website for the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process is now up on line. Some on the extremes of the church divide may well say, "What good is all this talk?" One side will say, "Delay is denial," while the other will say, "How can I converse with those with whom I disagree?"
Fortunately, there are others who know that it is in conversation with one another that we come to appreciate one another even if we continue to disagree with each other. Respect and forbearance are, after all, virtues in and of themselves — and even if we think our interlocutor may lack some other virtue, and she think the same of us, at least in continuing the conversation we are both incarnating a clear and definitive virtue between us.
More importantly, the overarching purpose for this continuing conversation is not conversion but mission: we are not out to produce Right Thinking in each other, but Right Action by and with each other — action right and righteous not simply on our own estimation but in fulfillment of the divine command to carry out the works of mercy; which we can do most effectively when we pool our resources in cooperative ventures. Thus are words made flesh, as at the first, while we were yet sinners, the Holy One deigned to come among us as our guest, and spoke with us, even in our ignorance, on the road of our pilgrimage.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
“a clear-sighted companion.... If you are passionate about the vitality of today’s church, I encourage you to accompany him on his mystagogical excursion into the liturgical landscape. You will rediscover a familiar place rife with fresh provisions planted by the God who longs to feed our deepest hungers and hopes.” —Jay Koyle, chair, Faith, Worship and Ministry of The Anglican Church of Canada
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