The parallels are very interesting, if not striking…
For the past week the big news in religion circles has been the Roman church establishing a structure to bring into full communion Anglicans that are now at theological odds with their own denomination and are looking for a more conservative church.
But consider this Anglican-Roman possibility compared to the PC(USA)-EPC situation.
At the top level there is the structural similarity. In each case the receiving church has created a specific auxiliary structure within the church to accommodate the beliefs, polity and practices of the immigrants. While Rome is still ironing out the details, it has been announced that the post-Anglican branch will have a “personal ordinariate” (read bishop or other episcopal type person)(update: a good note on personal ordinareates from Called to Communion) for that branch. The EPC has of course set up the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery.
Now, yes, I am fully aware of a couple of points where these two cases are reversed. First in size, the larger Roman church is offering to receive from the smaller Anglican church while it is the other way around for the PC(USA)/EPC relationship. But there is a historical relationship in each of these cases with the smaller denomination braking away from the larger at some point in the past. One other important difference in this situation is the speed that each developed. While the founding of the New Wineskins Presbytery was not immediate, it did happen relatively quickly by church history standards. The reunification of the Roman and Anglican branches has probably been a goal of Rome for, oh, say 500 years, and this most recent move should be viewed as something specific that has been in the works for a while, maybe a couple of decades.
But beyond the structural parallels there are at least two dynamics in this where we may see parallel activity as well.
The first is the effect on the receiving institution. Interestingly, in both cases the receiving institution will have to make accommodation for women serving in ordained positions. While the EPC had this as a local option, we have seen some question about how former PC(USA) churches would be integrated into EPC presbyteries that do not currently have women ordained to church office. For the Roman church, it will have to accommodate not only women serving as priests but the reality of married clergy. And while Rome has previously accepted married clergy that have realigned to them from the Anglican church, this will require a whole new level of accommodation.
But what this really does is raise the possibility of questions from the established side. “If they can be part of us and have women clergy, why don’t we?” “If they can be part of us and the priests can be married, why can’t we?” I have previously spoken of the PC(USA)-ization of the EPC, it will be interesting to see what the ramifications are for the Anglican-ization of the Roman church. How much interest will there be in members and clergy drifting from the established side to the new branch?
(Correction: After multiple contacts about my line above about women priests (see the comment below) I did some more looking and 1) can not now locate my original source for that and 2) located a lot of commentary that implies no women priests. Accordingly, I have struck that comment. If I can locate my original source I will reinstate the above line and cite a reference. Until then it is not an issue. Sorry about that.)
The second parallel is the one of pragmatism and practicality — The idea looks good on paper, but will they come? Put another way — How much will this be viewed as the better of two imperfect options?
Within the PC(USA) the situation is still developing. The church has, for the moment, retained the ordination standards but the majority view seems to be that when in all likelihood the PC(USA) presbyteries vote on it again a year from now there is the distinct possibility that G-6.0106b will be modified or removed. At the present time not all of the churches who are part of the New Wineskins Association of Churches have moved to the EPC New Wineskins Presbytery — many see their calling to remain with the PC(USA) for the moment. And Presbyterians for Renewal has proposed a non-geographic synod for churches to be able to remain in the PC(USA) while holding differing views on ordination standards. While the EPC option is available it appears that so far a minority has viewed it as the appropriate way forward.
There is a similar situation in the Anglican Communion even without the offer from Rome. In the U.S. there is both the Anglican Church in North America that broke away from the Episcopal Church as well as some dioceses that are looking at staying, but just barely. The Diocese of South Carolina has a special convention this weekend where it will consider five resolutions that would keep them in the church but withdraw from many of its functions. Similarly, within the Church of England there are groups within the church that are eying the announcement from Rome, but seem to be leaning towards the loyal opposition route. And then there is the Global South where the “liberal trajectory” in parts of the Communion is an issue, but not for them at home.
One area which does not seem to be a parallel is the politics of the exit strategy. In the PC(USA) the EPC option seems to really be viewed as just that, an option. Despite charges of recruiting PC(USA) churches, and the effort by the PC(USA) to hold onto property, it has seemed to be something that churches consider for the sake of their ministry.
Now maybe I am reading too much into some of these stories (or the media is writing too much into these stories), but over the last week I have gotten the impression that many of the conservatives in the Anglican Communion see the offer from Rome in political terms and a development to be used as a bargaining chip. Maybe it is just me, but from the comments welcoming the new option (e.g. ACNA) it almost seems like some members of the Communion are using the Roman Church as a “white knight.” They are not so much interested in joining Rome as to use its offer to put pressure on the Anglican Communion to reinforce conservative views. But maybe this is just me reading some conspiracy theory into all this.
If you are interested in more of the practical realities of this offer to the Anglicans from Rome I would suggest a piece by Diana Butler Bass on Beliefnet and Peter Smith at the Louisville Courier-Journal. And of course, one of my favorite reads, GetReligion, has five different articles analyzing the coverage of the announcement. (One, two, three, four and five)
Now, if you are regular readers of my blog you probably realize that I have an analytical interest in church realignments. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I think that my first Ph.D. degree is probably enough so I won’t be doing the comprehensive research and analysis, but there are probably a couple of good dissertations about church structure and realignment that will come out of this and I look forward to that research.
In addition, it will be interesting to see what develops in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over the same issues after this past summer’s Churchwide Assembly. So far about ten ELCA churches have had a first vote on realigning with the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. But I need to start closely following another denominational branch like I need…
Anyway, it is interesting to see how both the structures and practicalities of these realignments are developing. We will see what the actual outcome of all this will be.
Hi, Steve. I think there are some key differences between the ECUSA/RC situation and the PCUSA/EPC situation. The churches that the pope is reaching out to first are those in parts of the Anglican world who are still upset that their church is ordaining women. Ordination of women in the Anglican communion is not universal–in fact it’s not common, apart from the North American church. Also, he’s appealling to a non-evangelical segment of the Anglican communion. I’m not aware of too many examples in the San Gabriel Valley, but there are many churches that would define themselves as Anglo-Catholic. They tend to practice a very high Anglican liturgy [sometimes known as bells’n’smells] and whose version of the Eucharist is not far away from transsubstantiaton. There’s a segment within this group who are CHARISMATIC Anglo-Cathloic–I have a friend who is a rector in this type of church. Many of these clergy wear the cassock all the time. This group will feel quite at home in the RC church. However, my friends in the low Anglican evangelical portion of the church will never look to Rome for a home. They would feel more comfortable in Calvin’s Geneva than in Rome. Most of the African Anglicans are in this category. You might correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there was anything in the papal statement that said female clergy would be welcome–in fact the pope would most likely categorically refuse them. The Catholics have accepted married clergy already, in the form of Anglo-Catholics who convert fully to the Roman church. Unfortunately, the RCC has also encouraged some of these clergy to seek annulments of their marriages in order to maintain the church’s position on priestly celibacy. I know this from a Roman Catholic priest who I used to play sports with–he was the canon lawyer responsible for the annulment court in Winnipeg. He was heavily criticized in the press for annulling the marriage of a priest who had converted to Rome, but who had been married over 20 years with 4 children, using complex legal arguments. It created a real scandal, involving bishop, archbishop and ultimately the local cardinal, if I remember correctly. A Jesuit friend thought it was a travesty. I can’t say I miss the political squabbling within the PCUSA–it began to remind me of a dog with a bad case of fleas–it becomes so preoccupied with itself that it loses sight of actually doing what a dog should do.
Howard,
Thank you very much for making the distinction between dissatisfied evangelical Anglicans and the Anglo-Catholic line. It is an important difference I did not make in the original post and based on your comments I significantly underestimated the nature of the difference.
While I thought I saw a reference to accepting female clergy when I was writing the post, I have tried to locate that reference without success. Further, as you mention, the whole nature of the invitation is such that it is unlikely women priests are included in the offer. I have made a strike-through in that line in the original post and have entered a correction. I’ll restore the sentence with citation if I can actually locate my original source.
None-the-less, the pressure on the Roman church regarding married clergy does seem to be an issue, based on multiple sources.
The “will they come” may not be as much of an issue if the target audience is only the Anglo-Catholics.
And the political aspects may be limited to the evangelical branches using the pressure on Canterbury to their advantage.
Thanks again for keeping me accurate here.
Steve
I agree that there will continue to be significant pressure on the RC hierarchy to allow married, male clergy. The celibacy of the priesthood is a relatively late addition to Catholic dogma, anyways. The continued sexual scandals in the church will add to the pressure.
I was recently in Hong Kong at a meeting of seminary presidents from around the world. I have to say that they look at the North American church with much bemusement. Their general perception is that we are out of touch with reality. The churches in the Global South tend to be conservative theologically and are growing rapidly through evangelism and discipelship. They wonder why we don’t “get it”in North America. However, they do see us as needing to receive missionaries in the immediate future, and are training their students to be able to minister cross-culturally. So, perhaps there is hope that our churches won’t go through the y-axis by 2050 after all!
Just returned from visiting my daughter in Houghton NY. It was a beautiful time to be in upstate NY. Is your daughter still at Keuka?