That Was The Retreat That Was

Bls asked me how this retreat was. Well, it was wonderful. We stayed in a lovely retreat center just south of Nicomedia, which appears to be affiliated with some sort of liberal Roman Catholic splinter group. The food was simple but well-prepared from local organic produce. Fortunately for the other retreating groups, our boisterous group (average age=~27) had an individual house all to ourselves well away from the main part of the retreat center.

My intention this retreat was to stay quiet and listen carefully to the stories of those there, who are a representative sample of the young blood the Episcopal Church can draw upon, and also listen carefully to their responses to certain issues of Anglican identity. Well, that was an exercise in futility. Innate personality traits, early environment, and my education generally have conditioned me to talk even when I'm trying to listen. Oh, well.

For future reference:

I'm not sure that I grew up in the Episcopal mainstream. I grew up in parishes where no one was too High or too Low that co-existence in churchmanship ever was problematic. I grew up in parishes where faithful gays and lesbians (in both senses) were far less of an issue than unfaithful straight ones. I do not have too much experience with conservatives, because while I did listen carefully when I had an opportunity to hear conservatives talk, those times were few and far between and the conservatives in question generally were restraining themselves for the sake of peace. As a result, I still do not understand why FiFNA objects to the ordination of women.

I always use the term Anglo-Papist affectionately.

There is such a thing as happy-clappy, Anglo-Catholic worship. It happens in South Africa.

I was principally catechized by three individuals:

(1) A Tennessean who represented some sort of intermediate between Keble and Affirming Catholicism. He taught me the importance of prayer and regular corporate worship and the wonders of Holy Scripture. He also taught me that Holy Scripture should be read with an eye to its historical context.

(2) An Affirming Catholic scholar, who taught me that ancient theology and practice could be relevant to modern problems.

(3) An ethnic Syriac, who taught me that the mystical tradition of the Faith and its social implications never could be divorced.

In other words, I was born and bred a Radical Traditionalist. I honestly don't think that I represent the Episcopal mainstream.

I have read many things. I have not read everything. If I have a choice to read primary sources or secondary sources, I read primary sources. If I have a choice between relatively old and new works, I read relatively old ones. I am not quarter as clever as you think. I am not half as clever as I think.

[end useless information]

Now that we have those matters out of the way, I will talk a little about the actual retreat. The goal of these particular retreats is to focus more on the inward than the outward life, which is the usual focus of the small group during the first half of the year. The theme was Anglicanism, considering such topics as the history of Anglicanism with particular view to social justice issues, Anglican decisionmaking, and the Book of Common Prayer. Perhaps the highlight of the program was an instructed Eucharist, which took nearly three hours but provided me with some new perspectives on liturgical practice in a variety of settings. At some point, I'll have to talk in more detail about evangelism and what I heard this weekend.

We had a bit of a break on Saturday afternoon, so I ended up lying on the beach reading Anglicanism: The Answer to Modernity , a fine little volume of essays by Cambridge chaplains, which has much to say to us all about the future of the church and the weaknesses of its present polity.

On Sunday, we went for Eucharist to a monastery high above Nicomedia. If I ever need a brief vacation, I know where I'm going. The liturgy was a blend of traditional and contemporary features, including curtseying and incense. The sermon was lovely. More interesting was the brief talk we heard from the preacher after the service. In it, he described the revival of Anglican monasticism, including the recent reform of this particular order, which had started out very much in imitation of the post-Tridentine Roman Catholic orders, depending on hierarchy to maintain the harmony of a common life. However, this resulted in great dysfunction, since whenever two Brothers were having personal conflicts, the authorities just moved one of the Brothers to another monastery until after a cycle of a few more houses, the troublesome Brother would return again. The solution to this problem was for the order to adopt the Rule of St. Benedict, a surprising choice for a group mostly made up of parish priests who had forsaken the world. As you can imagine, it turned out to be a good choice. They now see themselves very much more like a family and make decisions more democratically. Viewing themselves as a family forced them to confront their interpersonal problems and made them seek counseling. Apparently, the monks were seeing a family counselor once a week but are now down to a few times a year. They also made a connection with more experienced Roman Catholic Benedictines to the north, who now visit them every once in a while (just in case they want to see interesting exhibits in Laodicea). All in all, their reform seeks like a model for the kind of reform the Communion needs, even if the scaling may be a little trickier.

The Brother who was talking to us also mentioned that groups from evangelical colleges were visiting the monastery, implying that monastics are facilitating in interest in liturgy and devotional practice from the Emergents and the Emerging.

The bookstore at the monastery is excellent. Their selection ranges from books on the theology of human sexuality to astrophotography to a very fine collection of Patristic and later monastic writings. I was tempted to buy a copy of the Conferences , but I settled on a volume of Bede's sermons, thinking of Derek's endorsement.

One thought I had at the monastery did not come to fruition until I came home and read one of Derek's recent posts on the Stoic underpinning of Benedictine thought. The Brother who talked with us discussed his parents' marriage as one that did not start with a burning romance but because they both needed someone to marry. He described how the business of living together over the years had produced between them a great deal of mutual respect. Hearing his account, I thought nothing so much as Titus Lucretius Carus's De Rerum Natura in which he describes the highest form of the love as that produced by consuetudo , i.e., the business of living together and the habit of relating, the gradual conversion of one to another. Although Lucretius was quite the antithesis of the Stoics, his approach to agape seems good even if his approach to eros is utterly irresponsible.

The Bishop of Durham Speaks (Again!)

By his own lights, the Bishop of Durham should take a backseat to the councils of the Communion for a little while, since it's clear he's straining the bonds of affection by not engaging properly in the listening process. Or else he and the Presiding Bishop need new media consultants, because one can't read his latest interview by Ruth Gledhill without cringing at his lack of sensitivity and poor information about the Episcopal Church. Let us be clear. Tom Wright is a fine scholar. I agree with much of his work as an apologist and appreciate how much admiration he gains for Anglicanism from those outside it, especially in the vein of "well, those Anglicans aren't so bad after all." My disagreements with him will come in his application of his scholarship where he thinks he should promote his fairly accurate view of what Paul thought without considering whether he might be better off considering how Paul thought. I woudn't want to be gay in Durham. I can imagine he's pretty much a brick wall.

But as I had to say at the time of last General Convention,

Well, Bishop Wright, I'll give it to you straight. I would prefer there be strong compliance with Windsor or no compliance. But at this point, we reassessors have no assurances that border-crossing will be punished, nor that the parts of Lambeth I.10 we like will be enforced. Thus, if you're going to quote committee documents or Lambeth resolutions (you only do so implicitly) as law to us, you must simultaneously give assurances that the whole of the law is enforceable in some settled tribunal. And the thing is, my Lord, it's not.

The Primates' Meeting isn't a settled tribunal either. However, I am not so burned by Wright's ignorance of the cast of characters or his rather bizarre view of what party in North America is schismatical. No, I am far more critical of his accusation that we are doctrinally indifferent and novelly so. Now, I know that Bishop Wright claims succession from Bishop Butler, a man who of all the bishops of the Church of England was not doctrinally indifferent, but his colleagues generally were. Doctrinal indifference is anything but novel in Anglicanism. More importantly, while I see pockets of it in ECUSA, it cannot be said to be as general as he imagines it. Fr. Clavier had a most revealing comment on this issue when he discussed how ECUSA appears to the rest of the Communion. Every time the Presiding Bishop goes anywhere, he or she is a spokesman for General Convention, a forum in which the Church expresses herself in terms of laws and ends and not in terms of theology, so that the Presiding Bishop must justify ECUSA in terms of the political agenda of the winners of the particular vote. Such a representation only caricatures us. And so Wright commits the chief crime of the lazy academic. He represents his opponent's view in the most inaccurate way possible to justify his own. But let us not forget that much of his rhetoric is very present in our own church. One almost can hear Father Harding and LEAC appealing to a blissfully ignorant center ready to be saved from the infernal plans of the "church rats." Let us pray to God to free from our slanderers.

One key essay in Anglicanism: The Answer to Modernity concerns the Primates' Meeting in Portugal in 2003 before VGR's election. The issue there was the consecration of missionary bishops for North America in the Province of Southeast Asia. The author of the essay argued that the deal brokered in Portugal was that the esse of church polity lay in the ability of the decisionmaker to be present for the ecclesial community. Thus, the Primates were to make decisions in their particular churches adapted to the situation but careful of the needs of the rest of the Communion with whom the Primates also were present.

The question we have to ask is who breached this agreement more: +Griswold, when he acceded to the local development of VGR's election and consecration, knowing how unacceptable this was to the rest of the Communion or +Akinola and company when they chose from their hierarchical post to cause contention and confusion in the North American churches? All have sinned...

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior,
the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the
great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away
all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us
from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body
and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith,
one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all
of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth
and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and
one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.