So, I feel a little dumb

I got my first response to one of my blogs and it was from none other than the highly respected Canon Theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina and well known blogger http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/ Kendall Harmon. It was to inform me that I had been writing his name wrong as Harmon Kendall.

Now I knew his name, but for some reason didn't get it right through my fingers. (Perhaps they were thinking Harmon Killabrew?)

In any event, Kendall+, I'm sorry.

(And in any event, I am a little embarrassed that you have found your way to my modest blog.)

"Listening" and "Listening"

On another blog (Kendall Harmon's) a little fight has begun about whether or not the Global South is faithfully listening to gay and lesbian Anglicans as the various statements of the Church since Lambeth '98 have required. Below is my foray into the debate:

"As Inigo Montoya said to Vizzini at the Cliffs of Insanity, “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
There is an interesting debate emerging here and elsewhere about the imperative to “listen” in the midst of this debate on sexuality. To put it in the words of this blog, the reappraisers call us to actively listen to the experience of gay and lesbian Anglicans. By this they mean that the issue remains open. As long as we listen we may get the data that will change the position of the church in these matters.
“Yes”, the reasserters will say, “we will listen.” But they mean something slightly different. Listening does not mean that the issue is open. For many of them (not necessarily all, though) the issue has been decided by the scripture, the consensus fidelium through the ages, and ratified by Lambeth ’98. Listening connotes here a pastoral response within the boundaries of the received tradition.
Some might argue that this is “listening” in bad faith, that the whole concept of listening here requires believing that the question is open. But I do not think it necessarily follows.
As an example: a friend received a letter from a parishioner complaining about him being too Trinitarian. My friend listened respectfully and openly to the person’s difficulties with this doctrine. He did not, however, have to nullify the doctrine of the Trinity as a closed issue in order to listen to the parishioner.
Or how about this: I can openly listen to my old racist curmudgeon of an uncle, his fears and pains amid a changing world. I can even have a modicum of sympathy for him as a person in turmoil. But that is not to say that the return of Jim Crow is an open option.
Certainly there are some listening in bad faith on all various sides of this debate. Comes unfortunately with the fallen turf upon which the battle is joined. Our primary problem is not bad faith, but incommensurate understandings of what listening means here."

Alexandrianism???

David Virtue has posted an interview with Archbishop Malango of Central Africa which is very interesting. (See link above.) If this is true and actually comes to pass the majority of what is now Anglicanism will become what might be called Alexandrianism, a realignment of Global South Anglicanism together with fellow travelers in ECUSA, CoE, etc. The center of this new communion will be in Alexandria, Egypt (known, of course, for its HUGE number of Anglican Christians).

The Archbishop also says that this mess will be sorted out before Lambeth '08. I take this to mean that if ECUSA in '06 and the Canadians in '07 don't decide in their respective synods to straighten up and fly right then the Africans are going to bring these matters to a conclusion in communion with Canterbury or without.

I'm not sure that the good Archbishop might not be bluffing here. (A hope that Griswold is counting on. This whole thing is begining to have the flavor of high stakes poker.) But in any event, these guys are serious.

What is also interesting to note is how tired the Global South is of "listening" and dialogue. Two things seem to underlie this noticable "listening fatigue." 1) The Global South folks believe that the listening is not mutual. 2) They are tired by the implication that the matter is still open. For them, listening is not about trying to decide what is right in issues of sexuality, but more of how we can be more sensitive to gay and lesbian Anglicans while affirming the traditional position nonetheless.

This would put them at odds with Rowan Williams, who has intimated that the position of Lambeth '98 is the settled position of Anglicanism for now, and that we would have to go a very long way before we could change, but might be open to revision later.

Update: Brad Drell over at Drell Descants has posted an AAC release contesting Virtue's take on Archbishop Malango's assertion of the emergence of a new Anglican communion centered in Alexandria. http://descant.classicalanglican.net/index.php?p=285#comments

Certainly not the first time Virtue has gotten things wrong.

Let the Spin Begin!

The news from ACC-13 in Nottingham is that a very close vote on a resolution from representatives from the Global South has effectively "censured" or "expelled" or "(place favorite adjective here)" both ECUSA and the Canadian Church. Here is Kendall Harmon's post with comments: http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/index.php?p=7387#comments

What this really means is not yet clear, but the spin machines will be working on this one overtime.

What I suspect it means is more than Frank Griswold is comfortable with. Now each of the four "Instruments of Unity" are on record in this matter, which does not conform with the drift of ECUSA. The Statement of Lambeth '98 on sexuality is now recognized as the official teaching of the Communion, overwhelmingly by Lambeth and the Primates, reluctantly but firmly by Rowan Williams, and narrowly by the ACC. (On top of it, it appears that all Primates have been made ex officio members of subsequent ACC meetings, which will have the effect of pulling the ACC further rightward.)

Frank increasingly will be in the position of saying something akin to "well, we lost every electoral vote, but Pennsylvania was close."

On the other hand, the Network folks must realize that this probably doesn't mean as much as they would like it to mean. The ACC is not the posse on white horses who are going to make the bad guys get out of Dodge. There is a considerable minority voice in the Communion which will try to ameliorate any harsher measures.

The decisive moments are still a year off: GC '06 and the likely maelstrom of response by the Primates afterwards. Windsor, Newry, and now to a lesser degree Nottingham have all given us plenty of rope.

And I, for one, cannot imagine a good outcome for any members of ECUSA (barring a complete recantation, which won't happen.) The elation from some of the "reasserters" on Kendall's blog seems misplaced to me.

I am begining to think that in the end we will have two (or more) "Anglicanisms" in America, both of which will be small and declining.

Is the Reformation Over?

Interesting read from CT's Books and Culture. The question is asked here from an Evangelical perspective. It may be time to ask the question from an Anglican perspective as well.

The Anglican Communion Institute asks the question from another direction in their essay on "Anglican Christianity":
http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org/articles/anglican_christianity.htm

Worth pondering both...

Williams' Address to the ACC

The Archbishop of Canterbury's address to the Anglican Consultative Council is required reading for every Episcopalian. It is brilliant and most profound. I printed it up and with #2 pencil in hand spent three very large and very strong cups of coffee reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting.

I will comment in time, but right now I am in a ruminant mood.

One caution: I started reading the Address with the same hermeneutic of suspicion bifocals that I read anything from Frank Griswold or (supremely) the House of Bishops. Just receive his words and let them sink in. There are times that Williams' text seems nuanced. But it is not because he is being clever or cute, but because he is trying to go deep.

Note on comments

OK, so I really am not as competent with this blogging thing as I thought. Apparently I had the thing set so as not to accept comments. I have changed the setting. That being said, I am not looking for the type of spirited debate I have noticed on blogs such as titusonenine. This is primarily for friends and fellow travelers. A little chicken, I know.

Great Tradition Anglicanism

Below is the bulk of a comment I left a few days ago on Confessing Reader's blog a couple of days ago. I thought it appropriate to use for the first posting of substance on Selva Oscura.

"I perceive a desire for a form of catholic Christianity which longs to receive the insights of a variety of strands of the Great Tradition, whether found in Barth or Von Balthasar, Maximus the Confessor or Augustine, C.S. Lewis or Flannery O’Connor, or… well the list could continue for some time. (And we all have read large quantities of Newbignin and now Tom Wright.) We are synthetic rather than purely analytical and are wary of any absolute system that will insist that a John Wesley or a John Owen can simply be disregarded. We have drunk enough F.D. Maurice to expect that the final correlation of all these voices will be eschatological, and therefore can live with some tensions in our theological outlook.

Nevertheless, we are also wary of a boundary-less comprehensiveness as exhibited by the theological left and seek a conciliar based scriptural and creedal discernment of the limits of ecclesial teaching and practice.

We believe in the call to the concrete and historical unity of the Church and apostolic orders. We are embarrassed that we used to subscribe to the Branch theory and suspect that either Rome or Orthodoxy is the real embodiment of that historical unity, but also believe that a robust Great Tradition Anglicanism may just be Balaam’s Ass, reminding Rome or Constantinople (as well as the Protestants) of a generous catholic orthodoxy that is their deep inheritance.

We have made common cause with our Anglo-catholic and Evangelical/Renewed friends in Anglicanism, but find either direction left to its own to lead into a theological cul-de-sac.

Does anyone else recognize themselves in this, or is it just me?"

Keeping it alive

OK, so I haven't really gotten down the discipline of keeping up a blog yet.

I'm off to Mexico with the Youth Group for a week, so I will begin in earnest with my posting then.