By Jim Stockton
The Church of England describes itsef as “episcopally led and synodocally governed.” Bishop Pierre Whalon recalls at his blog site the comment of the late Church of England Bishop Ian Cundy, intended as a gentle corrective: “Our modality is historically the ‘bishop-in-synod’ rather than ‘episcopally led and synodically governed’”. It is a distinction, perhaps, that a bishop of the Church of England can appreciate, but one wonders if the lay person or priest there would do the same. Certainly, one wants the late bishop to be correct; and not simply out of respect for the dear departed, but because it reflects a high ideal: the notion that the institutional Church is guided by the Spirit of God moving in the organic Church gathered.
But one wonders, then, why comment on ‘bishop’ at all? Perhaps even within a relatively populist comment, the reality remains evident that the Churches of the Anglican Communion are institutionally weighted in favor of the bishops. The same tension that emerged as early at Cyprian’s third century declaration: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, “Outside the Church there is no salvation” seems to continue. Outside what Church? What is meant here by ‘Church’?
The Churches of the Anglican Communion are respectively engaged with the question of how they are to remain a Communion. They are being asked, if not required, by the Archbishop of Canterbury to consider and respond to the unfinished latest draft of an “Anglican Covenant.” Implicit, then, in the Archbishop’s request is the requisite assumption that the Communion cannot remain such without such a document. It is unfortunate, I think, that this assumption betrays a bias toward the institutional Church and a lack of confidence in the organic.
The modality of the institutional Church is indeed oriented around bishops, even in synod or council. However, with regard to our councils, it should be helpful to recall that it is a modern innovation that councils or synods incorporate lay or clerical participation at all. Historically, the Councils of the Church were populated only with bishops. This is true for the Church of England until as recently as 1970, when its General Assembly was established. Its General Assembly is the only gathering of the Church of England that we Episcopalians would recognize as in any way similar to the democratically organized bodies that we name as our ‘councils’ or ‘conventions.’
The modality here in the U.S. has been to proceed with a healthy suspicion toward bishops. Historically, Church of England bishops here were, as they are now, agents of the English government. Their presence in, and affection for, the colonial churches were almost nil. Colonial churches were populated with lay leadership and priests ordained in England, having then made the arduous journey here to serve. When the colonies declared their freedom, the Church gathered itself without any bishops at all, since the American Church had only one bishop at the time, and this one having been irregularly consecrated in Scotland. It was this initial Convention, much more organic than institutional, that decided to continue with bishops and to identify itself nominally with their ecclesial Office. Here, then, the modality has been quite different from that of England and her Church.
This may explain why many of our fellow Anglican Christians, at least their bishops, continue to fail to understand how it is that we here in TEC could, much less would, proceed with democratically established practices in our own Church that they cannot accept in their own. The Church of England, while far ahead of us in the practical sense in terms of gay unions and openly gay clergy couples, gets a bit of a pass from the criticism, presumably because of the Church’s status as an arm of the government and thus its consequent subjection to that governments laws. The Episcopal Church, though laden with institutionalism, is nevertheless far more organically organized and governed than the Church of England as well as most of its fellow member Churches of the Anglican Communion.
Maybe this explains, also, why the notion of an ‘Anglican Covenant’ is viewed here with increasing suspicion. As the Church of England itself once did, we of TEC have a resentment toward the institutional intrusion into our Church’s autonomy and autocephaly by foreign prelates, in this case, via the proposed ‘Covenant.’ Just as this nation was built upon suspicion toward such institutionalism, so also was our Church. Our modality is distinct. Because we are more organic, we are decidedly not “episcopally led;” instead, we are episcopally served. We are not even oriented around “the bishop-in-synod;” the corrective is too subtle for our organic reality. Instead, our synods, our councils or conventions, hold the bishops accountable. After all, we elect them.
Because it is rooted in the organic Church it enjoys comparatively fuller participation of the entirety of its membership, and so is comparatively more accessible to the movement of the Holy Spirit. If the organic Church spurns the product of an institutional modality, we can be assured that its perpetuity will remain far from tenuous. The existence of institutionalized organizations may well be threatened, and probably rightly so. But the status of One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic is claimed with profound integrity by the Church organic. It will thrive.
The Rev. Jim Stockton is rector of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin Texas.