By Jim Naughton
Seven Episcopal bishops have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury pledging their support for the Windsor process, whatever that much-misused phrase now means, and alerting him that they will be meeting twice this summer.
The seven style themselves a “steering committee,” making one wonder how many passengers are on this particular bus. At one point, the group that endorsed the Camp Allen principles, numbered in the mid-20s, depending on when you were doing the counting. But their ranks have been reduced by retirements and defections occasioned by the harsh recommendations made to the Episcopal Church by the Primates of the Anglican Communion at their February meeting in Dar es Salaam.
And that was before the group’s leaders and its high profile consultants began shooting themselves in as many feet as they had amongst them.
Remember that these bishops were advised during their last meeting at Camp Allen, in Navasota, Texas, by the Rev. Don Armstrong, then the executive director of the Anglican Communion Institute. Just days before that meeting, Armstrong had been suspended from his duties as rector of Grace Church and Saint Stephen’s in Colorado Springs by the bishop of Colorado, the Rt. Rev. Rob O’Neill.
In the five months since then, the diocese has announced its intention to try Armstrong in an ecclesiastical court for financial wrongdoing, and Armstrong and much of his congregation have decamped for the Church of Nigeria. Armstrong’s supporters have said his prosecution is politically motivated, but the publication of extensive research by a forensic accountant, a letter to the editor from 19 of Armstrong’s former vestry members questioning his leadership, the rector’s self-aggrandizing Easter sermon, and his vitriolic comments about the Episcopal Church have given the original Windsor bishops reason to doubt whether Armstrong and the ACI are useful allies.
Those doubts were fueled by the news that the Rev. Ephraim Radner, another key figure in the ACI, was a member of the board of directors of the Institute for Religion and Democracy. The IRD is a Washington-based organization sustained by conservative donors to undermine the mainline Protestant churches.
While on the board, Radner worked on the international team developing a covenant for the Anglican Communion. Endorsing this covenant might one day be the price of admission to the Anglican Communion. Yet, after his affiliation with the IRD was publicized, Radner denied there was anything amiss in helping to write a covenant for the Communion while serving on the of an organization dedicated to destabilizing one of its member provinces. He did not persuade the bishops, and he antagonized supporters of the covenant who understood the damage his affiliation had done to the document.
Radner has since made a poorly-received presentation on the covenant to the House of Bishops. Immediately after his tepid reception, he began arguing that the primatial vicar scheme suggested by the Primates in Dar es Salaam—under which a board including Primates from other provinces would supervise a vicar working within the Episcopal Church—should be imposed upon the Episcopal Church. Several of his subsequent writings have been informed by a sense of personal grievance which has served to diminish their influence.
The ACI further undermined itself by mishandling the Armstrong case, which is still unfolding in Colorado. As executive director of the ACI, Armstrong had mingled the bank accounts of his parish with those of the institute, which was not a legal entity, but rather, as its president the Rev. Christopher Seitz admitted—adopting the characterization of one of the group’s critics—just “six guys with a Web site.” Faced with the possibility that Armstrong’s trial would further tarnish its reputation, Seitz, Radner and their colleagues had to sever their ties with the man who was not only their executive director, but the owner of their web domain.
So it came to pass that a five-man organization that presumed to tell the 77-million member Anglican Communion how to resolve its internal difficulties had to disassociate itself from its own Web site. The ACI now has a new Web site, but credibility, unlike domain names, can’t be bought.
The steering committee’s cause has also been damaged by one of its own members. News of what transpires inside the Primates Meeting filters slowly through the Anglican system, so descriptions of Bishop Bruce MacPherson’s pointed personal attack on Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at the meeting in Tanzania is just beginning to achieve wide circulation. Observers present at the time say that MacPherson, who had been invited to the meeting to speak on behalf of the bishops who had endorsed the Camp Allen principles, characterized Bishop Jefferts Schori as the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the Episcopal Church. The comments, these observers said, went well beyond the issues under consideration at the meeting and included a general condemnation of her beliefs and her ministry. MacPherson’s remarks made those of Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, who spoke on behalf of the Anglican Communion Network, seem mild by comparison, the observers said. (Editor’s note: Initial reaction to this piece on other blogs seemed to indicate that I wasn’t clear about whether the observers mentioned above were present during MacPherson’s presentation. They were. I have edited this paragraph to make that clear. My apologies for any confusion..)
MacPherson, who is bishop of Western Louisiana, is entitled to his opinion of the Presiding Bishop; his fellow bishops are entitled to their opinion of him. After his performance in Tanzania, he may no longer be able to lead the coalition of moderate and conservative bishops that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the ACI, and Bishops N. T. Wright and Michael Scott-Joynt of the Church of England, were attempting to will into existence before the meeting in Dar es Salaam.
The success of the Primates’ communiqué hinges on the existence of such a coalition. If it doesn’t exist, the fiction that a large minority of Episcopalians is crying out for the Communion to intervene in their Church’s affairs cannot be sustained. And what was once a clever plan to undercut the authority of the Episcopal Church’s elected leadership, empower a counter-establishment, and preserve the notion that the Communion will return to health as soon as Americans give up on the gay issue, unravels.
The supporters of this plan—which include the Archbishop of Canterbury and, it would seem, at least several key members of the Anglican Communion Office—have invested much in it. For reasons best known to themselves, they have been willing to pretend that the theological opposition in the Episcopal Church is much greater than it is. But there is no Plan B, so they are unlikely to abandon their delusions—if they are deluded, and not knowingly distorting the truth—lightly.
Yet they must be somewhat dismayed at the composition of this steering committee. One of the seven members of the steering committee is retired. None has a constituency that extends beyond their diocese, except for those with links to the Anglican Communion Network. And there would be no need for a collation, if a critical mass of key players was already willing to ride to the aid of the Network.
So the question of how many passengers are on this bus remains, and will remain until we learn whether there are bishops crouching away from the windows, or whether the bus is empty.
In either case, liberals in the House of Bishops should recognize that they will have few better opportunities to reach out to moderate and moderately conservative members of the House. Under Bishop Jefferts Schori’s leadership, they could pass an alternative oversight plan that is not as legalistic as the existing arrangement, and that had enough teeth to compel compliance from reluctant members of their own ideological party. That may not impress the most antagonistic of the Primates, but it will give the Archbishop of Canterbury a little something to chew on. More importantly, it will demonstrate what the Church’s opponents deny: that Episcopalians are moving forward together.
Jim Naughton is the editor in chief of Episcopal Cafe.