Beware of the Grinding Wheels

The wheels of Anglican political machinations grind exceedingly slowly. They haven’t caught up with the internet age, and clearly don’t seem to care. The risk, of course, is that events will pass them by, and they will be rendered irrelevant, the effect of their grinding moot. The “progressive” end of the spectrum found the theological baseline enunciated by Lambeth I.10 in 1998, and the attendant listening process therein called for, too slow-moving for their liking, and forced the issue with the actions of General Convention 2003. Their opposite numbers on the “orthodox” end found the organic response of the Communion to the events of 2003 way too glacial, and have been about creating “facts on the ground” in myriad ways ever since.

But here’s the thing about those Anglican wheels: To the same extent that they grind slowly, they grind surely. They grind inexorably.

Practically before the lights were turned off on the General Convention of 2006, with its, at best, ambiguous response to the entreaties of the rest of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury weighed in with a pastoral letter to the bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Anglican Communion entitled, The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today. In that letter, Dr Williams made it clear that he had no intention of either initiating or abetting any effort to impose external “discipline” on the Episcopal Church (or the Anglican Church of Canada). One may fault him for not doing so if one is thusly inclined, but he is not culpable of inconsistency.

This is not to say, however, that the Archbishop is heedless of the misconduct of the North American holders of the Anglican franchise; indeed, quite the contrary. But his approach has ever been one of fostering the creation of the conditions under which the Americans would be the ones to “discipline themselves out” of full membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Challenge & Hope actually laid out an endgame scenario under which this would take place, with its two-tiered structure of “full membership” and “associate membership” in the WWAC, with the latter unmistakably envisioned as a state akin to “Anglican emeritus,” without seat, voice, or vote in the councils of the Communion.

Nothing that has transpired since Challenge & Hope—particularly and especially the words and deeds of Dr Williams—can be understood properly apart from its relationship to that document. This includes the communiqué from the Primates’ Meeting in Tanzania in February 2007, the statement from the House of Bishops in New Orleans in September of that year, Rowan’s presidential addresses at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the report of the Windsor Continuation Group, and the communiqué from last month’s Primates’ Meeting in Alexandria, Egypt.

The latest piece of the puzzle to fall into place was announced by Lambeth Palace today. In fulfillment of one of the key recommendations in the report from the Windsor Continuation Group, the Archbishop has named the members of an initial team of “pastoral visitors” whose job it is to safeguard the interests of besieged “orthodox” minorities in dioceses and provinces dominated by “progressives.” Provinces like the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. In May, the Anglican Consultative Council will convene and presumably be invited to lend its imprimatur to the arrangement and up the ante by establishing a Pastoral Forum along the lines envisioned by the Windsor Continuation Group to the Lambeth Conference last summer, which recommendations seem to be widely endorsed in the final published compilation of reports from the conference’s indaba groups.

Reaction to today’s news has been utterly predictable, with indignant consternation from the left (“See what’s ahead of us if we don’t nip it in the bud right now?”), and derisive yawns from the right (“Uh…Rowan…the horses left the barn a long time ago. Don’t worry about the door now”). Sometimes when you’re taking fire from both sides it means you’re occupying an completely untenable position. Is Rowan short a few credit hours in Rabbi Friedman Triangulation Prevention Training? Or, making both ends of a conflicted relationship angry can mean that you’re doing something exactly right, and that you shouldn’t be discouraged by the shrapnel flying all around your head.

My bet is on the latter scenario.

The next click of the gears will be heard in May, when the Anglican Consultative Council next convenes, in Jamaica. In addition to creating the Pastoral Forum, they will have a look at the next (and final?) draft of the evolving Anglican Covenant, which will not be perfect, but will, I wager, move us unambiguously in the direction of formally recognizing that communion is, in fact, the natural limit of autonomy for the 38 Anglican provinces. After the ACC meeting, all eyes will then turn to Anaheim, where both houses of General Convention will be gaveled to order on July 6^th.  It’s impossible to tell from this far out exactly what action or inaction General Convention will take that will move TEC in the direction of “second tier” membership in the WWAC. It may not even be all that clear when the convention is over.

But it will not remain a mystery for long. Because while the wheels do grind slowly, they also grind surely. Rowan Williams may go down in history as a lot of things. But a fool isn’t one of them.