Dear Fulcrum Friend,
'The way to Easter is Good Friday. The victory of resurrection requires the vulnerability of crucifixion.' Walter Brueggemann
The Easter message proclaims the triumph of resurrection over death. But, as Walter Brueggemann has noted, there can be no Easter Day without Good Friday, no resurrection without crucifixion.
This is a truth the Anglican Communion surely needs to hear. As I write, the headlines are full of schism, doom and gloom again in the wake of statements by the Scottish Episcopal Church about homosexuality and ordination. Reuters paints a picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury struggling to prevent the Communion from implosion and disintegration. It feels as if we are never going to get from Friday to Sunday.
But, as Brueggemann also points out, Christians are 'in-betweeners.' We perpetually inhabit the space between the Cross and the empty tomb symbolized by Holy Saturday where we have neither completely escaped the pull of Good Friday nor reached the glory of Easter Day. 'Jesus and his people always live between the banishment of Friday and the gathering of Sunday, always between the exile of crucifixion and the new community of resurrection.'
We should not be surprised, then, that the present moment is so painful for the Anglican Church. On issues about which we hold passionate views, we are always at our most vulnerable. Given the seriousness of the issues that face the Communion, the agony of vulnerability is inescapable.
Does this mean that hope of resurrection for the life of the Communion amounts to no more than an ever receding horizon? Much depends on the continuing reception of the Windsor Report throughout the world but especially in North America. Here the signs are mixed and not easy to read. Leaving to one side the Canadian reaction (which was not conducive to the hope of reconciliation), last week's Covenant by the ECUSA House of Bishops appears to many people a step forward. Others, however, have interpreted it with deep suspicion. The debate will continue. If the pessimists are right, then the statement is no more than a disingenuous diversion, an opportunistic buying of time while liberal forces regroup.
However, an alternative reading is that having realized the depth of the crisis precipitated by the consecration of Gene Robinson and the actions of New Westminster, and confronted by the strength of feeling expressed by the Communion as a whole, the ECUSA bishops recognize the force of the case made by the Windsor Report and are seeking a way forward for which they will need time. If this is indeed the case, the Nairobi Statement by the Primates of the Global South in February will have been crucial as a reality check ECUSA could not ignore.
Fulcrum has offered a careful response to the ECUSA bishops'statement which can be read on our website. The jury, of course, remains out: the trenchant criticisms offered by the Anglican Communion Institute, among others, remain pertinent and require to be addressed. But, at the very least - as Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh has commented - it signifies that the bishops have begun to grasp the seriousness of the situation and have begun to face up to the deep divisions within American Anglicanism. However, if events prove the more optimistic scenario to be unfounded, it is hard to know what lies ahead other than more pain and perhaps ultimate collapse.
My personal view is that in the end the future of the Church will turn upon whether the Communion, especially the key players, has the moral will to succeed and the spiritual vision to entrust ourselves to the gracious God of resurrection. All of us - whatever view we hold - need to remember that however the politics play out, it is God who is Lord of his Church, even though we must be realistic about the instruments by which he chooses to work, namely sinful (albeit redeemed) human beings. We need to keep on reminding ourselves that Windsor is an issue of faith and above all, prayer. Four weeks ago, Anglicans throughout the world were praying that the Holy Sprit would break through and lead us into some kind of way ahead. Without sounding naïve perhaps we might dare to believe that whatever its motives and however flawed the ECUSA House of Bishops' Covenant might be, it nonetheless represents an answer to that prayer.
Wishing you a blessed Easter,
Francis Bridger
Chair of Fulcrum
These posts are by guest authors for Fulcrum