Lambeth can be what it wants to be

Summary

Why the wrangling over Lambeth? If nothing else, the present debate over invitations to and attendance at the upcoming Lambeth Conference offers an important opportunity to reflect on the character of the Church as a body that gathers, takes common counsel, and makes representative decisions. Specifically, some of the public statements over these matters being offered by various parties within the Anglican Communion expose some deep misunderstandings as well as some marvellous opportunities.

One of the main expressions of misunderstanding lies in the stated desire - first declared by certain American liberals, and now taken up from their own side by some American and some African conservatives - to leave the Lambeth Conference behind as a gathering unworthy of their attendance. Writing as a conservative myself, I must address the latter group most explicitly.

It is true that we find that it is hard and perhaps impossible any longer to "recognize" our church within the liberal hegemony dominating TEC. And it is natural that we would feel, as a result, a certain anger driven by sadness, disappointment, and alarm. It is even natural that such feelings would motivate us to seek separation from that which seems alien and heretical to us, and to attempt to forge links with a form of Christian belief and practice that coheres with our own self-recognition. But all of this need not and should not drive us to refuse to meet within the larger church in a Christian spirit and confront our differences and their effects. Such refusal, it seems, runs counter both to Christian charity and to the way in which Christians have sought to settle differences over the ages (see below): namely, by gathering in council to deal face to face with matters that divide.

The Lambeth conference is not a "council" in one common sense of the term, insofar as it has no "formal juridical" authority. In the context of a divided church, however, it is not clear exactly what "juridical" means in a truly Christian sense. What gathering of Christians can truly claim today such apostolic authority as to "decide" the truth in a controverted case where there are always other parties, with their own "juridically" qualified gatherings ready to contradict such decisions? In any case, I will argue that conciliar gatherings are not primarily defined in terms of their juridical functions anyway, but in terms of their charismatic authority, lodged in the lives of (some/the majority of) their own members.

At the very least, then, the Lambeth Conference is like a council in that its purpose from the beginning has been to confront divisive issues with both truth and charity, engaged through the work of the Holy Spirit, and so nourishing and preserving unity in the midst of division. Thus, to insist that agreement be present before meeting - and despite previous meetings! - is simply to void the purpose of the meeting in the first place. Further, to separate precipitously from a body that no longer resembles Christian truth and practice as one understands them, or that seems incapable to upholding them, is to foreclose on the pneumatic promises of providence that call us into council in the first place.

The above points do not entail the conclusion that discipline cannot or should not be imposed on those who persist in an alien way or who scandalize by their behavior. I, like many others, believe such discipline is in fact required. Still, such alien and scandalous life should be confronted rather than avoided by absenting oneself from an encounter in the Lord and refusing the obligation to hold to account in the power of the Lord. The primary point behind all this is that Christians have been given a divine narrative and vocation that insists upon engaged suffering as a means of witness, rather than upon departure and beginning anew as a means of protest and self-protection. Thus, the prophets (eg Jeremiah) and Christ suffer among their people. They do not leave them to form another people.

The Conciliar Life of the Church in Anglican terms

I am a strong believer in the "conciliar" nature of the Church - that is, in the Church as making her decisions in common "council". I have argued for this in various places, and believe that Anglicanism, perhaps more than most other Christian traditions of the present, is divinely gifted to live out this common Christian vocation. Because I am an Anglican, however, I understand the conciliar character of the Church in a particular way.

First, I believe that the Church's councils are ordered specifically around her bishops, as representatives of her apostolic ordering in communion. This does not mean that only bishops can take authoritative counsel for the Church, but rather that this is where such counsel finds its regularized articulation. There are good Scriptural and historical reasons for holding this position. Second, because the Church herself is imbued with the corrupted character of her members, her people and her leaders (including bishops!) are not infallible, and therefore her councils "may err", even in "matters of faith", or in things pertaining to the "Word of God" (Articles 19 and 21), the last of which stands as our ultimate authority in all aspects of our life, including counsel.

These two points taken together have a number of important implications. Among them is the fact that Christian councils themselves can never be sufficient on their own - either as some single and "super" council, or as specific local ones, whether of bishops or of clergy and laity. Rather, the Church's councils work as an interlocking and integrated series of mutually informing and eventually reinforcing gatherings of discernment and decision, only whose breadth and extent provide the perceived "authority" of her teaching and discipline, as they finally find voice in the common teaching of the Church's bishops. Local and wider councils or "synods" - a word that simply means a "common path" or "walking together" - that include the variety of representative decision-making in our churches, must find their place and finally be shaped by and submitted to the full range of conciliar decision-making that happens over time. The Eastern Orthodox refer to this in terms of "reception", the historical process by which the Holy Spirit demonstrates decisions to be conformable or not to the Word of God and the truth of Christ.

Indeed, another important implication of an Anglican view of the Church's conciliar character is that decision-making is a fundamentally historical process in its Christian integrity, and not something that just happens at one go. Conciliarity is both embodied only over time, and it is perceived in its authority only over time. This happens as conciliar discernment and decision on a particular matter is apprehended as being coherent and congruent with the Church's vocation as the Scripturally-bound vessel of the Lord Jesus' life.

A further implication, then, of an Anglican notion of the Church's conciliar character, is that the interlocking and integrated series of her gatherings of discernment be ordered, so as to provide the accountable means for their mutual influence and shaping in and through the vicissitudes of time. It is precisely because of the corrupted and fallible nature of the Church's councils as historical entities that they take place in a fashion that follows a regular, organizationally predictable, and thereby responsible shape, one that is capable therefore of being steadily judged within a context of historical movement. Disordered and irregular counsel is the enemy of the Church's authority.

The charismatic character of conciliar authority

In light of all this, I would emphasize that the real basis for the authoritative nature of the Church's conciliar vocation is not, therefore, the entity of a "council" in itself. Councils are not Scripture. Councils themselves are not the Holy Spirit. Councils guarantee nothing. Just because one has a council - local or wider - does not mean that what it decides has any authority in Christian terms. Rather, the basis for the authoritative nature of the Church's conciliar vocation lies in the faithful perseverance of its members in common over time, that is, in their willingness to live the Christian life together "for the Lord" and "in the Lord". Since the authority of councils derive from their place in a historical series, it is grasped only retrospectively, and it is possible to do this only because one has carried through with the conciliar life together long enough and through a perseverant life of faithfulness on such a path that the truth is apprehended together. A synod may indeed come to a decision that is "true" in the sense of conforming to and displaying the truth of Scripture, but that council may never gain "authority" in the Church because it never took place within the extended conciliar life of the Church in such a way that its truth was apprehended.

The place where the Holy Spirit "authorizes" a council, therefore, is not first in the abstract nature of its decisions nor even in the juridically-defined and defining shape of a given gathering. It is in the ongoing Christian life of those making decisions and receiving them. Councils are authoritative when they are perceived, that is, as being "holy", enacted by holy people and received by holy people, conformed to the Scriptural shape of God's will. True councils are "charismatic", in the qualification used by Orthodox theologians. Councils are authoritative, not only when they speak the "truth" (this is not a sufficient condition for conciliar authority), but when they are filled with and give rise to the gifts and fruit of the Spirit - faith, generosity, and so on, and "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Romans 12:6ff; Galatians 5:22f). This should not be a surprise, Scripturally speaking: for it is the "gathering in my Name (cf Matthew 18:20), in its rich and profound sense of the Spirit's common life, that is promised the presence of Jesus. The Church "over time", and hence as a truly conciliar reality, exists as Christ's Body only as she embodies the Holy Spirit's gifts and fruit in this sense that allows her to gather at all (1 Corinthians 12).

The necessary and essential link between council and Holy Spirit, understood in the sense above, underscores a paradoxical reality: the Church's councils need not be wholly "pure" in their make-up to be valid and authoritative. Rather they require only that some of their members be holy and, more importantly, that such holiness persist in the midst of the Church's errors and sin. For the Spirit is "sent"; the Spirit does not constitute. The Spirit inhabits; the Spirit does not embody. This is the model of the apostolic church of Jesus, at the Last Supper and Passion: the holiness of the Church - and her councils - is given in the means by which her saints demonstrate the Spirit's fruit within the Church's fallenness, by the exercise of truthful witness, mercy and charity with and among her corrupted members, as Jesus did not only towards his persecutors, but towards his own followers who would and who did eventually abandon Him.

In light of this discussion, we can answer a number of questions currently being raised about attendance at the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. We can do so by observing the character of the Church's first great councils - eg Nicea and Constantinople - and seeing how in fact they conform to the outline of conciliar life suggested above, and how they clarify current concerns. Although these two councils represent something "new", from the perspective of history, they were not in fact "primordial". They emerged from and took their place within an existing and long line of previous councils, some of considerable significance and weight. As "councils", they are "general", not de novo.

Does one sit in council with those with whom one is out of communion?

Nicea answered this question affirmatively: present were not only the Novationist schismatic bishop Acesius, but also Arians (including Arius himself!) who had previously and formally broken with bishops of the (finally decided) "orthodox" party. One does not need to share the Eucharist with another Christian in order for the counsel of the Holy Spirit to be authoritatively pursued among them.

In the midst of disputes within the Church, including ones that cut deeply and that burden us today, this reality (more fully demonstrated below) cuts in all kinds of directions.

Does one sit in council with heretics?

Invited to Nicea, as we know, were Arius and his friends and supporters (eg Eusebius of Nicomedia, who ended up causing so much trouble for the orthodox after Nicea, despite signing on to the final agreement).

The first Council of Constantinople, over 50 years after Nicea, had to revisit with much anguish and conflict the very matters already decided at Nicea. This means that the later council, by definition, was one engaged with known "heretics", established as such by a previous council. Yet that did not prevent the council's gathering and its engagement of orthodox and heretic together.

Does one sit in council with the excommunicated?

As the previous question and response show, "heresy" can already be conciliarly defined and still be engaged subsequently on a personal level at another council. Hence, Arius, along with at least two African bishops, Secondus and Theonus, had been formally condemned and excommunicated by a formal Alexandrian synod, some time before Nicea convened. Yet Bishop Alexander (and Athanasius, his then-secretary) met with them at Nicea. Both Nicea and Constantinople gathered bishops who had, at various times, been excommunicated and even exiled by opposing parties.

One of the questions to be asked in the context of the above is, "does not counsel with heretics and the excommunicated threaten the corruption of the council itself and of the church subsequently?" This question has been posed within the Anglican Communion currently in terms of TEC being a liberal "heresy" similar to a "gangrene" or "cancer" whose presence cannot be tolerated in council for fear of contamination. Clearly this was not the view of those participating in the first councils of the Church, including the first two Ecumenical Councils. It was not so because the nature of Christian conciliarity, as we have explained, is founded on the power of the Holy Spirit within the lives of those taking council, not uniformly, but simply really - just as Jesus' authority in the Church is based on His own pneumatic life, not on His members' uniformly.

Certainly, there are a variety of responses given in the New Testament church to heresy or immorality within the Christian community. In all cases where possible, discipline is exercised. But discipline within the New Testament is not uniform - as Paul's experience with the "false apostles" at Corinth makes clear - and is often set aside in favor of the "power" of the Spirit's "demonstration" in the lives of the Church's saints, regardless of the failures of others around them. Indeed, the one text in the New Testament regarding "gangrene" (2 Timothy 2:17) is not about complete disengagement with heretics, but about the proper kind of engagement, based not on drawn out controversy but on a particular kind of charismatic posture and example as a teacher (2 Timothy 2:24ff) that leads the erring person to "repentance".

The point here is that a council may choose to invite or not, on the basis of discipline or not - none of this validates or invalidates a council. These are prudential decisions, not matters of faith (see below).

Does one sit at council with those who have betrayed previous councils?

Following Nicea, an entire array of Arians and related "heretics" continued to agitate and in fact often "triumph" ecclesially through episcopal establishment and numerous new councils, both local and wider. Many, although not all, of these subsequent councils were attended by "orthodox", who knowingly came to gatherings in which they were outnumbered, deceived, and mistreated. Their attendance, where possible, was based on the courage, calm, and faith granted them by the Holy Spirit, not on juridical realities. Such councils were often later judged to be invalid; but not because of their initial gathering, but rather because of their fruit. I personally believe it to be the case that, at certain point, if one can no longer trust the word of certain members of the Church, their presence at the Church's councils do indeed become problematic. But again, to what degree is a prudential decision, not one based on principle.

Does non-invitation of potentially worthy attendees invalidate a council?

The Bishop of Rome was never invited to (nor did he or his formal representative attend) the Council of Constantinople (and he was, at the time, out of communion with the Council's president, Melitius, as well as with others present). Yet, in time - and not a long time either - the Council of Constantinople was recognized by the Pope as a valid "ecumenical" council, despite not even having a formal papal representative present.

The conclusion here, to restate a point made before and well-grounded in conciliar theology, is that councils are authoritative in their historical reception, not in their immediate form. The form, however, points to the character of the council in an initial way, and eventually reveals that inner character over time: one comes to council, and God does His work.

Is the Lambeth Conference a council?

Councils are determined retrospectively by their fruit. There have been "rules" formulated for determining a council's legitimacy (especially in Western churches, though less so in the East), but these are not in themselves sufficient or even necessary, certainly not always clear (cf Constantinople I, and various other disputed councils).

The Lambeth Conference was not, as we know, initially understood to be a "synod" of juridical authority; nor is it yet so considered in any clear way. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently wrote that the Conference "is not a formal Synod or Council of the bishops of the Communion, which would require us to be absolutely clear about the standing of all the participants." This statement is technically true, but it is perhaps misleading. What in fact does "formal" mean in a conciliar church where the work of the Holy Spirit himself in the lives of a council's participants grants a council authority? Does it apply simply to the "regular" aspect of a council - in which case, however, Lambeth is surely such a gathering. And, as we saw, an authoritative and regularized council may invite all kinds of attendees, without necessarily being "absolutely clear about the standing of all the participants". It is the Spirit that lets us "stand" or "fall" (cf Romans 14:4) - we should not worry about others. Finally, the Lambeth Conferences have in fact been in the process of being received in more and more clearly "conciliar" ways, wherein "moral authority" (already recognized by many) has assumed an embodied disciplinary authority, if not yet one that has been well defined. What does seem clear is that the Lambeth Conference already functions as part of the interlocking reality of the Anglican Communion's discerning and decision-making life in a way that is essential and effective.

If this is so, we need to understand what exactly is happening when the Archbishop of Canterbury makes decisions and statements regarding a given Lambeth Conference. First and foremost, he is not ruling on the authority of Lambeth as a council of the Communion. That is not his role nor his purview. Only the Holy Spirit rules on a council! And the Lambeth Conference has been the subject of this pneumatic ruling already now for some years. Thus, while the Archbishop of Canterbury has the authority "to invite", he does not have the authority to declare a gathering a true council or not. Not even the Lambeth Conference!

But what of the "invitations" themselves? The Archbishop of Canterbury may, and he should, exercise his authority to invite in as prudentially acute a way as possible, given all the various needs and pressures at work in the Communion especially in our day. The "regular" and "ordered" character of the Anglican Communion's life has given him this role. This has happened not only through both the providence and accidents of time, but conciliarly, through the "received" acceptance of his role from the first Lambeth Conference until now, and this follows the pattern whereby most councils are convened through particular ordered means and persons. And until this particular pattern within the Communion is altered in a regularized fashion, the role is his to fulfill in as faithful a way as possible. This we pray he will do. It is possible that this role will one day be altered; but it cannot be simply altered by individual fiat from some quarter of the Communion, apart from the conciliar life of the Communion itself.

For instance, the Archbishop appears to have specific disciplinary and pastoral reasons why he will not invite Gene Robinson to Lambeth, or Martyn Minns, or several other bishops from around the Communion - eg their presence is egregiously scandalous or confusing or pre-emptive of certain decisions yet to be made. The point isn't that there is a grid by which to measure exactly levels of scandal or confusion as attached to specific individuals: is Robinson more "scandalous" than Arius? There is no such template. Rather, the Archbishop must simply do the best he can to weigh the practical realities of attendance and non-attendance, given the goal of conciliar gathering itself. He also may well have such reasons in the future for withdrawing or further limiting or expanding his invitations. We may agree or disagree with the Archbishop's assumed or explicit reasoning, but the invitations themselves are appropriately offered within the context of such prudential and disciplinary reasoning, and the conciliar value of Lambeth simply does not hang on the particulars of the invitations themselves. Whoever is invited is being called through the formal and ordered means of the church's conciliar life; and the calling should be heeded.

At the same time, the Archbishop can and should integrate, as far as possible and in as prudent a way as possible, his decisions about all this with the other representative councils of the Communion. Our current Archbishop has made it clear that he views his role as an "instrument" and "focus" of unity to be properly exercised within the college of Primates especially. Should the prudential concerns of his invitations demand it, he should rightly submit his invitations to the common counsel of his colleagues. And they indeed demand it, as I see it, in light of the very concrete concerns articulated by the Primates in their last meeting, concerns about TEC and the Communion that impinge directly on the Lambeth Conference's ability to strengthen our common life and witness.

My own view (and that of others) has long been that TEC's behavior has been so brazenly destructive of the Communion's conciliar life on a number of levels, that the entire American church's college of bishops should not be invited to Lambeth at all. Without some major, formal, and agreed recommitment to the character of conciliar life, TEC's participation in the Communion's gathering threatens to be subversive, not edifying, inevitably confusing, not clarifying. The Anglican Communion is not "the Catholic Church" tout court, by a long shot, and requires a kind of conserving energy that goes beyond whole-sale pneumatic openness-within-order. Individual TEC bishops might, if they so chose, petition Canterbury and the Primates for a seat at Lambeth on the basis of affirming a commitment to the principles the Primates themselves laid out in their recent Communiqué (the "Camp Allen Principles") - this may already be implied in Canterbury's current invitation, although this is not wholly clear - or at least a commitment to previous Lambeth resolutions, whose imposing legitimacy has now been clearly affirmed by the interlocking agreement of other Anglican Communion synods.

Perhaps something like this is still possible in the post-September 30th Anglican world, when TEC's House of Bishops will have given their common response to the Primates. Many of us hope for this and urge this, of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates themselves. But my opinion is only that - an opinion among many. I have no role in inviting, and I can only advise, from the farthest distance, on the character of prudence demanded by the current situation. The Lambeth Conference should go on with (preferably) or without imposed criteria. Even the most pessimistic "conservative" must agree that the numbers are there for traditionalist bishops to do whatever they discern as fitting, if they indeed show up and pursue it. That is the nature of a council: if "what they pursue" is right, it will stick.

But quite apart from Canterbury or this or that party's hopes or judgments, Lambeth can be, in terms of the Holy Spirit's leading, whatever it wants to be. Neither Canterbury, nor the Design Committee, nor those who do not attend can make or unmake the conciliar character of Lambeth. And those who do attend may well, should they choose to exercise the tools of the Spirit they are given (to the degree that any of us have such a "choice"), transform through the Spirit's work whatever the Lambeth Conference may initially appear to be into a true and authoritative council of the Communion and even of the Church at large. The Holy Spirit controls the course of a gathering of saints; and the saints are eager to work with God. The Church of Christ eagerly seeks counsel together, even when its "formal councils" are obscured.

And why would anyone wish to be otherwise than eager in this regard? There are clearly those who want to declare the Lambeth Conference conciliarly ineffective, and to depose it from (or deny it) any conciliar role, even before it convenes. A question to be asked of these people is whether they want to declare themselves, before the fact, as letting go of the charismatic calling of the Church. For, in the context of the Christian faith and the Church's life, they need not do so. "Talking down" the Conference or deliberately absenting oneself from it may or may not undermine the authority of Lambeth (indeed, depending on how it is done, it may in fact enhance it!). But if it so undermines it, it also may well undermine the authority of those who deliberately reject the Conference itself. For such pre-emptive rejection will cloud the eagerness, trouble the faith, dampen the fire, quench the Spirit. Let archbishops and their episcopal colleges come and "fight the good fight", sustained - as surely they will be - by the Holy Spirit of God. These are good people, whose deepest hopes the Lord would shape and honor. Let those who pray, come together and pray; let those who serve, come together and serve; let those who teach, come together and teach; let those who heal, come together and heal. Let the Holy Spirit list where He will within the Church as she gathers in the name of Jesus.