Truthful Language and Orderly Separation – of the wheat from the chaff in the Anglican church.

I’m sure Ephraim in a lovely bloke with wonderfully good intentions. The trouble is, he and the rest of the ACI are ponderously slow to act, suffer from logorrhea of such proportions that no normal person can read an entire article without becoming comatose and live in an ivory tower so high that they can no longer find their way down.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be a tiny change of direction. Ephraim, while taking a very long view, acknowledges that separation is inevitable – although he still isn’t in favour of it – and wants the separation to be orderly (he doesn’t really say why) and, that’s where the ACI comes in: to make it orderly.

At least, I think he is saying that.

Trouble is, by the time the ACI is actually geared up for action, it will all be over.

Insomniacs can read it all here

Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, recently aroused comment when he [said], “I continue to see a negotiated ‘orderly separation’ as the best and most fruitful way forward for the Anglican Communion. The experience of this Lambeth Conference […] has again convinced me that the Anglican Communion cannot hold in tension convictions and practices that are incompatible, and so not patent of ‘reconciliation’, without continuing seriously to damage the life and witness of Anglican Churches”. It was this reference to “orderly separation” that struck many as significant, coming as it did, not from the bigoted reactionary that some have wrongly made him out to be, but from a bishop who has steadfastly stood for and offered witness on behalf of the imperative and blessings of ecclesial Communion among Anglicans. His admission that such an “orderly separation” may be necessary at this time is significant because, in fact, he has worked hard for unity and believes in it. It is this kind of admission that should spur us to hard thinking.

Indeed, I do not want such a separation. I pray against it’s demand… But I agree that the sheer practical dynamics of the situation we are now in may well uphold Bp. Scott-Joynt’s views…
What, therefore, shall we do? I offer the following conclusions – as well as the preceding reflections – not to attack current directions being followed by Communion leaders and offices of various persuasions, but rather to point out the need to face challenges that have become increasingly visible.

At the least:

We must allow our categories of discussion, policy, and strategy as a Communion (and hopefully within member churches) to reflect and respond to the reality we confront:

• there should be no more use of the term “moratorium”; instead, clear directives need to be stated
• “moral equivalence” must disappear as qualifier or anti-qualifier, in favor of simple descriptive demands that are bound to the realities of each context and approached on their own terms: the notion that the practices of gay inclusion and boundary-crossing are logically analogous issues is false

…
…
… it now looks as if separation is simply necessary, not historically so much as logically and morally. … And the survival of catholic Christianity makes plain the moral necessity of such orderly separation by demonstrating the demands of one logic over the other. It is separation that preserves Anglicanism as a Catholic form of Christianity.
Some have suggested that the Covenant and the process leading to its adoption would, of itself, if not deliberately at least as a matter of course, provide the “orderliness” by which a separation, if needed, could indeed unfold. If it is to be the Covenant and its process, this indicates that we must not fear the kind of clarity and accessible steps of implementation that would allow for such differentiation if that is indeed the end towards which the present logics turn out to be moving. … A Covenant that makes clear that diversity has its limits and attaches consequences for violation of those limits preserves Communion while holding open the possibility of reconciliation…