Blue Cord

The Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars has announced its 2007 Student Paper Competition.  This is the second year that the AABS has held this competition.  The paper is awarded to the best exegetical study of a biblical text, theme, or concept or of a collection of texts relating to a question arising within the life of the church

The competition is open to any student at one of the eleven Anglican / Episcopal seminaries in the United States.  Papers are presented to the AABS faculty representative, who selects the best paper from the group and submits it to the AABS.  Papers are then read by a panel of judges from the AABS, who select the winner.  The prize includes $250 and a two year membership in the AABS.  The winning paper is also submitted for publication in the Sewanee Theological Review.

The deadline for entries in May 15th.  For more information, please check out the AABS Web Site (maintained by yours truly).

I grew up Southern Baptist.  I attended the Baptist church until I was 29 and am a product of a Baptist college.  I have great respect for Baptists, particularly their commitment to the authority of Scripture.

Unfortunately, fundamentalists took over the Southern Baptist Convention in the early 1980s and began chasing out everyone who didn’t toe their particular theological line.  Baptist colleges and universities were the worst hit, although in some places entire congregations were kicked out.  In carrying out their theological purge, the fundamentalists abandoned the basic idea of what it means to be Baptist: the freedom of the individual believer within the local congregation.

At that point, I decided to change denominations.  I wanted to belong to a denomination that respected the history of Christianity.  I wanted a community of faith that followed its own rules.  I wanted a church where the two sides worked out their issues instead of splitting over them.  So, I joined the Episcopal church.  Believe, the irony of that decision is not lost on me.

The communique released by the primates is an interesting document.  Some very conservative diocese have been having bishops from other provinces come in to officiate in services.  This is against the canons of the church.  So, the communique sets up a situation in which they are given alternative oversight by someone other than the person elected by the majority.  In case you are not following this, the conservative got rewarded for violating canons.  They were told that what they were doing is wrong, but if they would stop doing it the church would basically set up the same situation but make it legal.

The liberals and moderates, however, who had followed all the rules, were told that they had to stop blessing same sex unions and consecrating gay bishops.  The General Convention of the ECUSA has already agreed to the latter.  The former has never been on the table because it is not an issue that affects the Communion.  But the primates have issued their ultimatum, even though there is nothing in the canons that give the primates that right.  In other words, the liberals and moderates got punished for following the rules.

The reason that the conservatives in the Episcopal church got their way is that the majority of primates agree with them theologically.  But this ignores what makes us Anglican: the fact that we worship together despite differences as long as we accept the creeds of the church.  That is the essence of Anglicanism as established by the Elizabethan Settlement and defended by Richard Hooker.  But the conservatives seem to think that it is alright to ignore Anglican rules and traditions in order to force your theology on someone.  Anglicans have never been held together by a common theology.  We are held together by a common faith.

This means this is the second denomination I have lost to conservatives who want to force others to accept their theology even when it goes against the essence of the denomination.  I have to say, it is getting kinda old.

The New York Times reports today that the primates of the Anglican church have given the Episcopal church eight months to ban all same-sex unions.

This is an interesting and unfortunate move for several reasons. For one thing, it changes the idea of what it means to be a member of the Anglican Communion. This is the first time that the primates have dictated to a province what it can and cannot do. When churches in Africa were dealing with the question of polygamous priests, other provinces let them work it out themselves. And in those areas where polygamy is still being practices (despite official claims to the contrary), those churches are being allowed to make the decision on how to proceed by themselves.

It is also telling that this decision focused on same-sex unions. Up until now, the argument has been that it was the consecration of an openly gay man as bishop that caused problems for the communion. After all, they said, a bishop is a bishop for the whole church, and other provinces have to interact with bishops from the US. They had a point about that. But now they are saying that they have the right to dictate our practice on same-sex unions. This is something they have been upset about, but it affects them only in the most minuscule way. It is something that is internal to the Episcopal church. We are not asking them to accept unions performed here, nor are we asking them to perform such unions. But they felt free to legislate on this anyway.

It seems that the Anglican Communion is becoming more of a top down organization, which is what some conservatives have been wanting, except, of course, when the top disagrees with them and tried to get them to change. Then the hierarchy is corrupt, they say. In their view, the Anglican Communion can legislate on internal matters to stop same-sex unions, but they won’t obey the communion when they say that bishops should stop crossing jurisdictions. When tho communion agrees with them, they go along with it, but when it disagrees with their approach, they feel free to ignore them. Of course, there are some liberals who do the same thing. These two are making it very difficult for those of us in the center.