Discernment Challenges

Slowly, though reluctantly, it seems that the Anglican Communion is choosing ecclesial unity rather than division over the question of same-sex marriage, at least for now. The Anglican Church in New Zealand recently postponed their decision on the question, citing too much painful division on the horizon should it sanction same-sex unions as a marriage. The Church of Scotland has opened the door cautiously to studying the question. Both the Church of England and the Anglican Church of Canada will engage the same question next month but report deep divisions in their ranks. This seems to leave The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the USA as the only Anglican body having definitively changed the Marriage Canon to eliminate the one-man, one-woman clause.

What to make of this? Having only recently moved into the Anglican family, I am a new participant in this highly charged conversation. I confess my own struggle, not necessarily with same-sex partnerships, but with calling such partnerships marriage. And in light of the Orlando massacre which deliberately targeted LGBTQ women and men, I run the risk of being perceived as unsupportive of this vulnerable group suffering grave injustice and discrimination.

But nothing could be further from the truth. As a lover and disciple of Jesus committed to living my life in his footsteps,  I desire fullness of life (John 10:10) not just for myself but for all God’s people. And so I struggle ever more deeply, between authentic compassion and care in Jesus’ name (which Scott Sauls articulates so poignantly in his blog), vital in this time of profound grief in the LGBTQ community, and long-standing cherished understandings of marriage and sexuality.

Along the way I’ve become all too familiar with painful discernment challenges. When faced with difficult decisions and moral dilemmas in my personal life, I often have to take several big steps back from the situation in order to re-frame, rethink and reorient so as to discover a new angle or two. St. Ignatius’ recommendation to foster healthy detachment is an arduous task yet in the long run one well-worth pursuing.

When caught in a discernment dilemma, I make every effort to root my spirit in prayer and meditation, while engaging a trusted and seasoned mentor in my quest, all with the purpose of seeking Christ’s wisdom and light through the lens of Holy Scripture and the tradition of the Church. That wisdom and light requires ruthless self-examination through piercing, painful, questions such as:
1. What am I not seeing? What are my blind spots? Odd question, because as soon as I can see the blind spot, it’s no longer a blind spot.  🙂
2. What assumptions or emotional baggage prevent me from seeing in a new light?
3. Why does the direction/decision remain so unclear or conflicted or resistant?
4. What motivates the unclarity and resistance: negative energy arising from fear or ignorance, unresolved baggage or false attachments; or positive energy arising from genuine concern and important caution, from a deeper hunger for justice than the presenting issue portrays, from the loving desire to do the right thing?
5. Why does the current framing of my dilemma create unfocused energy and struggle?
6. What in the opposite perspective do I need to hear, heed and honour?
7. What is the delay in clarity telling me?

I remember more than once, when I have desperately wanted to forge ahead in an important decision while trying hard to ignore the muddle in my own mind and heart, as well as the ambiguous rationale in Scripture. Each time a wise mentor would hear me out and finally, carefully and gently, would say: “When the road ahead is not clear, it’s not time to decide. In that case, wait for the clarity.” I would groan, hating the answer, but knew enough to admit, with great reluctance, that my friend and mentor was probably right.

The prophet Habakkuk experienced this very thing:
I will stand at my watch-post, and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay. (Hab. 2:1–4)

If it seems to tarry, wait for it. Given the collective Anglican foot dragging over the controversial question on same-sex marriage, I wonder if it might help to take a few similar big steps back. For those who have been part of this conversation for nearly an entire generation and whose lives are directly impacted in adverse ways by this delay, this will be an exasperating suggestion. For those who realize (with or without chagrin) the slow pace of change in a 2,000-year old ecclesial body, this stepping back again and again is simply part of the sorting and sifting in the Holy Spirit’s orbit.

For discernment is much more demanding and time-consuming than debating and voting. Good discernment presupposes goodwill in every participant, our commitment to let God heal our hurts, harness our ego, and free us from false attachments and fear. Discernment can require stepping back and waiting over and over again, until the mist begins to lift. Discernment requires deep listening and heeding of all voices in light of Scripture, Tradition and Reason/Experience — the much beloved three-legged Anglican stool.

A close companion to good discernment is dialogue.  I am learning much from Andrew Marin who says, I am more concerned with working towards dialogue that actually promotes a shift in social engagement and relations than standing on one side yelling at the other to change. This past January, Angus Ritchie said something similar in his article,  “The pursuit of truth and the pursuit of unity do not represent a zero-sum game, because of the importance of dialogue in discerning the truth. The debates which continue to rage on these issues remind us that we need one another’s perspectives. Each “side” in this dispute has something to say which the other needs to hear – a fact that is possible to recognize without hedging one’s bets.“

Discernment presses counter-intuitive questions. In the current issue on same-sex marriage, such questions could include:
* Is it possible, heaven forbid, that those who resist defining same-sex partnerships as marriage have something worthwhile to speak into the question?
* Does such reluctance necessarily originate in ignorant, homophobic attitudes and motives, or in unacknowledged sexual hang-ups?
* Can the reluctance to ecclesial sanction of same-sex marriage arise from healthy, prayerful consideration, from genuine and justified caution and from a place of radical love?
* What is at stake in the proposed changes?
* What are we not seeing or hearing, because our own pain and desire clouds our ability to see and hear?
* Is the current ecclesial tension and division generative or problematic, i.e. a fruit of the Spirit or an obstacle to the Spirit?
* What in the experience and perspective of the other does each of us need to hear and grapple with?

The Scriptural grounding for the concept of a permanent same-sex relationship to be on par with marriage seems tenuous. Yet we cannot dismiss the experience, desire and witness of persons with same-sex orientation nor can we dismiss the possibility that something new is emerging in God’s economy of love through their presence in our Christian communities. More specifically, how can the unique potential blessing of a same-sex covenant be affirmed as an expression of God’s justice, love and mercy while at the same time honouring the integrity of the traditional and nearly universal understanding of marriage? Does the Marriage Commission Report This Holy Estate strive to open a space for another, third, way of considering the matter (par. 5.3.3)?

Are we willing, once again, to lay aside rhetoric and polarizing terms, own feelings of pain, fear and frustration, and increase efforts to listen deeply to one another yet again? Michael Coren recently wrote an article published by the United Church Observer, in which he admits that many who cannot in good conscience endorse same-sex unions as marriage are “loving followers of Christ who do enormous amounts of good work in numerous areas.” In New Zealand, a new Working Group on the subject is urged to  “constantly come back to the conservatives, to be sure that the recommendations are acceptable to them.”

In a few weeks, it is our turn as Anglicans in Canada to engage once again the painful questions. Spiritual maturity requires the questions and the deep listening in community in a safe space shielded from political pressure. It will not be easy. Yet we did not choose one another: God chose us to be Christ’s witnesses in the world, together.

The Anglican instinct to keep walking together in love is demanding, yet reflects poignantly the Gospel imperative to carry one another’s burdens and grow spiritual bonds of affection as the one Body of our Lord. I pray for the grace of charity and mercy in all conversation partners. And for the grace to remember: if the vision seems to tarry, do not lose heart. Wait for it.

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The Gift of Authority?

“The harder question is certainly how do these documents and this ongoing conversation filter down to the grassroots level… These documents will only exist in the theological-geek world unless we can find ways to put them into practice in working together.” These words were spoken last April by Anglican Bishop Linda Nicholls.

I agree with her; it’s high time that great ecumenical agreements and statements get more attention from the folks in the pews. So for starters, here are some of my musings on an important ecumenical document entitled: The Gift of Authority – Authority in the Church III © 1998 Anglican – Roman Catholic International Dialogue)

While this document was published some 18 years ago, it is sadly still little known by ordinary Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Sad really, for it is a prime example of good ecumenism in practise. The agreement takes a comprehensive look at the exercise of authority in the Christian tradition in a spirit of humility and honesty, openness and courage. Given the current challenges authority structures experience in both the Anglican Communion and in the Roman Catholic Church, it would behoove all of us to receive its content and to apply its insights sooner rather than later. The document confirms what I have been thinking and learning for a quite some time now, i.e. that the Roman Catholic way of exercising authority has been too centralized and hierarchical, and that the Anglican way of exercising authority within a synodal structure can be perceived as too nebulous and overly tentative. The former risks being experienced as increasingly disconnected from the lives of the lay faithful and the latter as too wishy-washy and lacking teeth. It seems to me that what the one tradition has too much of, the other tradition needs more of and vice versa.

The first section of the document is a beautiful sweeping look at the theological and spiritual underpinnings of authority in the Christian tradition throughout history. This is, in a way, the articulation of the Christian vision of how authority is supposed to work – where it originates, how it is refined and informed, and how it needs to be exercised:

In Jesus Christ … the “Yes” of God to humanity and the “Amen” of humanity to God become a concrete human reality. This theme of God’s “Yes” and humanity’s “Amen”     in Jesus Christ is the key to the exposition of authority in this statement. (par. 8)

When a believer says “Amen” to Christ individually, a further dimension is always involved; an “Amen” to the faith of the Christian community. … The believer’s “Amen” is so fundamental that individual Christians through their life are called to say “Amen” to all that the whole company of Christians receives and teaches as the authentic meaning of the Gospel and the way to follow Christ. (par. 12)

The interplay of God’s “Yes” and the believers’ “Amen” continues in the document’s exploration of the roles of Tradition and Scripture in the formulation and exercise of authority before it moves on to the importance of Reception and Re-Reception from one generation to the next in all time and place (par. 24—31). All this sounds as if Anglicans and Catholics are of one mind on the understanding and exercise of authority in the Church until par. 31 clearly acknowledges the challenges:

Anglicans and Roman Catholics can agree in principle on all of the above, but need to make a deliberate effort to retrieve this shared understanding. When Christian communities are in real but imperfect communion they are called to recognise in each other elements of the apostolic Tradition which they may have rejected, forgotten or not yet fully understood. Consequently, they have to receive or re-appropriate these elements, and reconsider the ways in which they have separately interpreted the Scriptures. (par. 31)

From here on the document lays out quite explicitly what the challenges are in each tradition  in order to recover the elements which have previously been “rejected, forgotten or not fully understood.”

The Roman Catholic Church is challenged to examine its commitment to lay participation in  decision-making and governance structures of the Church. While the document concedes that “the tradition of synodality has not ceased” in the RC Church, as a lifelong Roman Catholic I know full well that this gracious assessment has not been embraced as fully as it deserves. While the vision of the Church fathers at the Second Vatican Council certainly included a revitalization of the synodal processes in the Church, effective implementation of that vision was seriously halted for nearly half a century, even at the level of Bishops’ Synods.

It is only now with Pope Francis that some concrete efforts are being made, illustrated by Rome’s initiative to send questionnaires to all dioceses prior to the Synod on the Family to invite the thoughts and questions of lay Catholics through their local bishops. The fact that efforts at collecting real-life data from the lives of real people, and the fact that bishops were urged to listen deeply to their people and then to speak from their hearts on these matters, resulted in what some have called chaotic and messy debates at the two Synods on the Family — surprise! The lid has been held on tight for too long on concrete and controversial issues and new questions. The synodal model still has lots of dust to get cleaned off, collected from centuries of neglect in Rome. As Roman Catholics are waking up to the messy character of synodality, Anglicans must be smiling – recognizing something all too familiar in their own synodal deliberations. When it comes to restoring the synodal principle in exercising authority, Rome has much to learn from Canterbury.

However, Anglicans do not have the golden formula either: Anglicans have shown themselves to be willing to tolerate anomalies for the sake of maintaining communion (par. 56), thereby risking to diminish the very meaning of communion. While the Anglican concern for the quality of relationships of love and respect trump rigid adherence to rules, and while the Anglican concern for historical contextuality, dispersed authority, synodal consultation at all levels and proceeding through careful discernment and reception of new ideas are all laudable attributes of the Anglican approach to authority, they come with subtle yet real traps revealing its fragility. No issue has brought this weakness to the fore more, and no question has tested this model more, than the current debate on same-sex marriage. (A next blog post will address this debate in greater detail — stay tuned) Some Anglicans now look longingly across the Tiber for more centralized authority, while some Roman Catholics look longingly to the Anglican model of relational and moral persuasion and consensus.

The current situation is a telling one, highlighting how much both traditions need one another:

In the Anglican Communion there is a reaching towards universal structures which promote koinonia, and in the Roman Catholic Church a strengthening of local and intermediate structures. … The Commission poses some questions frankly but in the conviction that we need the support of one another in responding to them. We believe that in the dynamic and fluid situation in which they are posed, seeking to answer them must go together with developing further steps towards a shared exercise of authority. (par. 55)

There are other challenges contained in the ARCIC Document on Authority, challenges and critical questions issued to both traditions. Much is expected from bishops in each tradition to help realize the potential for further growing in unity:

For the sake of koinonia and a united Christian witness to the world, Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops should find ways of cooperating and developing relationships of mutual accountability in their exercise of oversight. At this new stage we have not only to do together whatever we can, but also to be together all that our existing koinonia allows. (par. 58)

When I first read this document a number of years ago I read it as a Roman Catholic, and now I have re-read it as a new and developing Anglican. I am still as heartened and inspired by it as before – I’d like to think of this as a testimony to the document’s integrity. Currently the Anglican model of authority is being severely tested, painful as that it, and it is on full display for the world to see. The latest installments of this display are the Primates Meeting in Canterbury last January, the published statement from the ACC House of Bishops this past February, and soon the General Synod in July. But when the second largest denomination in the country is disaffected Catholics and when the process of reception by the faithful fails massively on important matters, Rome’s authority is by no means exempt from being tested, albeit in different ways.

I recently finished reading a book by Jeffrey W. Driver, the Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide, Australia, entitled A Polity of Persuasion: Gift and Grief of Anglicanism (2014, Wipf & Stock). It contains the following text on its back cover:

The injunction of Jesus, “it is not so among you,” challenged his followers to use power and live in community in a way that contrasted with what occurred “among the Gentiles” (Mark 10:41-45). This is why the sometimes tedious debates about authority and structure in the Anglican Communion could actually matter—because they might have something to say about being human in community, about sharing power and coexisting, about living interdependently on a tiny and increasingly stressed planet. The Anglican experiment in dispersed authority, for all its grief, could be a powerful gift.

It has been 18 years since “The Gift of Authority” was published. Have our churches acted on its recommendations? Have our churches taken its suggestions and questions seriously? Maybe. Eighteen years is nothing in a tradition that thinks and breathes in centuries. The people in the pews still know regrettably little about any ecumenical agreements, a tragic fact. Both the Roman top-down model and the Anglican bottom-up model are going through their respective refiner’s fires at this time. I pray that “The Gift of Authority” can be a tiny guiding light in the current dilemmas. I can hardly wait for the day that both our traditions’ approaches to authority get remarried into a coherent whole, deserving of Jesus’ words as quoted above: It is not so among you. (Mark 10:41-45)

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