On June 27, soon after this summer's Episcopal Church General Convention, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, published his Reflections on the Anglican Communion. That day, I posted my first notes outlining some of his statements, especially those of a theological nature.
The aspect of his reflections that attracted much attention in some commentary was the reference to what was seen as a two-tier membership in the Anglican Communion. However, elsewhere, the two-tier membership was thought a misconstruction of the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks, because the supposed second tier (which would include whichever present-day Anglican Communion bodies unwilling to adopt a constitution or covenant applicable to those who will remain full members) was also described as on the same level as, for example, Methodists: churches with historic ties to the Church of England that are not in fact still in communion with the Church of England.
Rather than the proposed pragmatic arrangement in the reflections, my notes then and comments now will focus on their theological content. In particular, there are interesting statements in the reflections of ecumenical interest pertaining to the thinking of Rowan Williams, as a theologian, and the thinking of the Catholic Church, particularly the thinking of Pope Benedict XVI.
Among the theological statements that Abp. Williams then made are statements on the subject of ecclesiology. The following particularly caught my attention (my emphasis added):
"The reason Anglicanism is worth bothering with is because it has tried to find a way of being a Church that is neither tightly centralised nor just a loose federation of essentially independent bodies – a Church that is seeking to be a coherent family of communities meeting to hear the Bible read, to break bread and share wine as guests of Jesus Christ, and to celebrate a unity in worldwide mission and ministry. That is what the word ‘Communion’ means for Anglicans, and it is a vision that has taken clearer shape in many of our ecumenical dialogues.
"Of course it is possible to produce a self-deceiving, self-important account of our worldwide identity, to pretend that we were a completely international and universal institution like the Roman Catholic Church. We’re not. But we have tried to be a family of Churches willing to learn from each other across cultural divides, not assuming that European (or American or African) wisdom is what settles everything, opening up the lives of Christians here to the realities of Christian experience elsewhere. And we have seen these links not primarily in a bureaucratic way but in relation to the common patterns of ministry and worship – the community gathered around Scripture and sacraments; a ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, a biblically-centred form of common prayer, a focus on the Holy Communion. These are the signs that we are not just a human organisation but a community trying to respond to the action and the invitation of God that is made real for us in ministry and Bible and sacraments. We believe we have useful and necessary questions to explore with Roman Catholicism because of its centralised understanding of jurisdiction and some of its historic attitudes to the Bible. We believe we have some equally necessary questions to propose to classical European Protestantism, to fundamentalism, and to liberal Protestant pluralism. There is an identity here, however fragile and however provisional. . . ."
Dr. Williams' comments on ecclesiology in comparison with Catholic thinking caught my attention partly because of a connection with his words at a press conference on April 25, 2005, held with English Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor after they returned from attending the inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI together. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's Archdiocese of Westminster posted excerpts from the press conference, including this (again, with my emphasis added):
"Excerpts
from this afternoon's (25 April) Press Conference with Archbishop Rowan
Williams and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor at the English College in
Rome following the visit this morning of Archbishop Williams to Pope
Benedict XVI. . . .
+Rowan
I see that there are three phases in the life of
the man who is now Pope Benedict. As a theologian, originally in
Germany, he wrote some extraordinarily positive and abidingly fruitful
things about the nature of the Church and the nature of the Christian
faith. Some of the semi-popular writing he did in the 1970s,
especially, I still find extraordinarily fertile … The second phase is
one in which he is charged professionally in his work here at the
Vatican with doctrinal precision. And he has constantly struggled, in
ways in which of course people have found problematic at times, for
clarity of definition … He is now being asked to undertake a third
task. How he will perform that we do not know, but he has given signals
of a real willingness to take it forward in fellowship with others in
the light of the late Pope’s Ut Unum Sint, drawing others into
the conversation about how the Petrine ministry is to be exercised. . . .
I
do feel that of course at the beginning of any new papacy it’s a new
start, a threshold, but also I would say this comes at a very
significant time for the Anglican Communion. We are struggling as a
Communion to find a sustainable, robust doctrine of the Church that
will help us deal with the many difficulties we have faced in recent
years. We have in the ARCIC documents a very considerable legacy of
material which ought to help us in that. I hope that the next phase of
our dialogue will assist us in that exercise. That is why I feel
positive. . . ."
When I read that interview a little over a year ago, I found it intriguing and confounding at once. What Pope Benedict XVI has written on the subject of ecclesiology has been intrinsically dependent upon the papacy. That being one of the key differences between Anglicanism and Catholicism, it was difficult for me to speculate concerning what aspect of Pope Benedict XVI's ecclesiology he might have had in mind as productive toward a "sustainable, robust doctrine of the Church" that might help the current situation in the Anglican Communion. And, at the time, he said nothing further about it besides that one brief statement in an interview -- at least nothing that I could find. For that reason, it was particularly intriguing to me to see Abp. Williams' statements on communion and ecclesiology published late last month.
Yesterday, he said more during a Church of England Synod, as part of an Address to General Synod on the Anglican Communion, including this:
"The real agenda – and
it bears on other matters we have to discuss at this Synod – is what
our doctrine of the Church really is in relation to the whole deposit of
our faith. Christian history gives us examples of theologies of the Church
based upon local congregational integrity, with little or no superstructure – Baptist
and Congregationalist theologies; and of theologies of the national Church,
working in symbiosis with culture and government – as in some Lutheran
settings. We have often come near the second in theory and the first in
practice. But that is not where we have seen our true centre and character.
We have claimed to be Catholic, to have a ministry that is capable of being
universally recognised (even where in practice it does not have that recognition)
because of its theological and institutional continuity; to hold a faith
that is not locally determined but shared through time and space with the
fellowship of the baptised; to celebrate sacraments that express the reality
of a community which is more than the people present at any one moment
with any one set of concerns. So at the very least we must recognise that
Anglicanism as we have experienced it has never been just a loose grouping
of people who care to describe themselves as Anglicans but enjoy unconfined
local liberties. Argue for this if you will, but recognise that it represents
something other than the tradition we have received and been nourished
by in God's providence. And only if we can articulate some coherent core
for this tradition in present practice can we continue to engage plausibly
in any kind of ecumenical endeavour, local or international.
"I make no secret of the fact that my commitment and conviction are given
to the ideal of the Church Catholic. I know that its embodiment in Anglicanism
has always been debated, yet I believe that the vision of Catholic sacramental
unity without centralisation or coercion is one that we have witnessed
to at our best and still need to work at. That is why a concern for unity – for
unity (I must repeat this yet again) as a means to living in the truth – is
not about placing the survival of an institution above the demands of conscience.
God forbid. It is a question of how we work out, faithfully, attentively,
obediently what we need to do and say in order to remain within sight and
sound of each other in the fellowship to which Christ has called us. It
has never been easy and it isn't now. But it is the call that matters,
and that sustains us together in the task."
The focus on ecclesiology as the truly central issue for the Anglican Communion did not arise suddenly this past month. Among the comments that Abp. Williams has made on the subject in between April 2005 and June 2006 are these comments made February 5, 2006 in a speech On the Centenary of the Birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
"So if we ask about the nature of the true Church, where we shall see the authentic life of Christ’s Body – or if we ask about the unity of the Church, how we come together to recognise each other
as disciples - Bonhoeffer’s answer would have to be in the form of a further question. Does this or that person, this or that Christian community, stand where Christ is? Are they struggling to be in the
place where God has chosen to be? And he would further tell us that to be in this place is to be in a place where there are no defensive walls; it must be a place where all who have faith in Jesus can stand together, and stand with all those in whose presence and in whose company Christ suffers, making room together for God’s mercy to be seen."
Clearly, ecclesiology has been on Rowan Cantuar's mind for some time now, in a serious way, and clearly, his own concept of ecclesiology is in a strong sense Catholic although not within the structure of Catholicism that has been maintained by the papacy and Catholic Church Councils. However, it is apparent as he works to describe the elements of an Anglican ecclesiology that he is working considerably from the prior work of such theologians as the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Pope Benedict XVI. He mentions the Anglican tradition of being in some sense Catholic, and of holding Church bound together such that faith is not locally determined. His theoretical, theological work is, in a serious sense, original.
Already at the 1998 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion, the need for a well defined Anglican ecclesiology -- and its absence -- was the subject of an address by Anglican Dr. Edward Norman, Canon Treasurer of York Minster, entitled "Authority in the Anglican Communion", including the following:
"The problem with a “Doctrine of the Church” is in determining how “the People of God” may be identified when there exists, as there has virtually always existed, a division within Christianity. This is compounded by the insistence of some Protestants, in the last five centuries, that no Church is possessed of an indefectible body of teaching, anyway, and that the commission of Christ is in reality distributed to a number of different traditions, some of which, though entirely national and local—as the Church of England was before its replication overseas—claim to be self-sufficient in Christian understanding. . . . It is also awkward for Protestants to argue consistency of teaching since they do not agree among themselves over an impressively wide range of points, and in the case of the Church of England these disagreements extend internally across the whole experience of its adherents. . . .
"Most Anglicans are unaware that there is a problem over the Church’s ecclesiology. Probably most members of the clergy have scarcely concerned themselves with the matter: certainly the kind of teaching available in ministerial and theological training today does not raise issues of this sort with any noticeable profundity. Sermons preached in order to promote Christian unity, for example, almost never include the Doctrine of the Church itself as among the reasons for disunity and the greatest stumbling block in ecumenism. The matter is, however, absolutely crucial: the question of authority—of the means by which truth is known to be true—is the very basis of all religious association. . . .
"The last point is extremely important. For the expansion of ecumenical courtesies in the second half of the twentieth century has allowed Anglicanism the illusion of seeing itself as part of a wider context of Christian unity. The reality is actually that the participant Churches in such arrangements each retain their differences, including decisively different understandings of the nature of authority itself, and therefore of the Doctrine of the Church. These measures of inter-communion are not moves towards Christian unity, especially since the historic Churches, who do have distinct ecclesiologies, are largely outside them; they are moves towards a sort of loose federalism in which spiritual camaraderie is mistaken for structural agreement about identifying who the People of God are."
Taken in this context, it is clear that Abp. Williams has diligently sought to press the Anglican Communion to reach a "structural agreement about identifying who the People of God are": in short, an Anglican ecclesiology by which those who agree to be in communion with each other also agree on what is the theological basis for that shared communion. He has also made it clear, if it were not already so, that his own view on that theological basis is in a strong sense Catholic, although not derived structurally from the papacy. Exactly how that might be viewed by the Anglican Communion as a whole, of course, cannot be worked out solely by an Archbishop of Canterbury, however theologically proficient. The eventual outcome of this theological work and reflection will necessarily depend on the thoughts and actions of others within the Anglican Communion as well -- it seems clear from his statements -- as the thoughts and actions of others outside of it, including the Catholic Church.
As Abp. Williams referenced the writings of Pope Benedict XVI, dating back to the 1970's, as being of interest to him on this subject, it is interesting to take a look at some of the statements made as Cardinal Ratzinger on the subject of ecclesiology, which might be viewed in comparison to the quotes given above from Abp. Williams. Although Abp. Williams did not identify which particular writings of Cardinal Ratzinger he had in mind, and although he limited his remarks to things written in the 1970's, the nature of Abp. Williams' interest in the work of Cardinal Ratzinger might become apparent from several excerpts from Cardinal Ratzinger's essays gathered from over 4 decades by former students, and recently published in English translation under the title Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, including these:
"The Second Vatican Council certainly did intend to subordinate what it said about the Church to what it said about God and to set it in that context; it intended to propound an ecclesiology that was theo-logical in the proper sense. . . .
"The crisis concerning the Church, as it is reflected in the crisis concerning the concept 'People of God', is a 'crisis about God': it is the result of leaving out what is most essential. What then remains is merely a dispute about power. There is already enough of that elsewhere in the world -- we do not need the Church for that. . . .
"The term 'communion' thus has, on the basis of this central biblical meaning, a theological and christological character, one associated with the history of salvation and also ecclesiology. Thereby it also carries within it the sacramental dimension, which appears quite explicitly in the writings of Paul: 'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation [communion] in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation [communion] in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body' (I Cor 10:16-17). "Communion" ecclesiology is in its inmost nature a eucharistic ecclesiology. . . .
"That does not mean that the argument about the right ordering of things and the assignment of responsibility should not also be carried on in the Church. And no doubt there will always be tings that upset the balance and that have to be put right. There may of course be an extravagant and excessive Roman centralization, which then has to be identified as such and corrected. Yet such questions should not divert us from the real task of the Church: primarily, the Church is not there to talk about herself but about God, and it is only in order that this may be done aright that rebukes are also delivered within the Church, in order to give direction and order to talking about God and about the ministry we all share." (pp. 125, 129, 131, 133 from "The Ecclesiology of the Constitution Lumen Gentium")
"Number 9 of our text says that the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is not the result of adding together individual churches that already exist and might unite in some kind of federation; rather, it says that the one Church is ontologically and temporally prior to the individual churches. I cannot imagine anyone defending the contrary theory, that is, the view that the Church as a whole consists only of the sum of a number of particular churches, that it is thus a matter external to the nature of the Church. In that case, indeed, the whole business of ecumenism would merely be a matter of human ingenuity, of managing to get as wide as possible a process of merging. The fact that the one Church is a theological entity, and not the subsequent empirical uniting of many churches, certainly emerges convincingly from the New Testament itself. In this case the Letter to the Ephesians is only making quite clear what the whole of the New Testament is saying. . . . the first congregation in Jerusalem is not just the "local Church" of Jerusalem, but an anticipation of the universal Church: the twelve apostles are the responsible representatives of the universal Church; Luke expresses that in the image of many languages." (pg. 249 from "Cardinal Ratzinger's letter to Dr. Johannes Hanselmann, Provincial Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, March 9, 1993)
Initial sources of Abp. Williams' hope might be sought where Cardinal Ratzinger noted the possibility that the Catholic Church could at times find itself in power struggles or with too much Roman centralization, and where the focus of Eucharistic ecclesiology in Cardinal Ratzinger's thinking found similarities with the earlier theological work of some of the Russian Orthodox theologians whose work is also appreciated by Abp. Williams. However, the concept of working a similar Eucharistic ecclesiology into historical Anglican thinking has not, to my knowledge, been attempted, and something on that order seems to my thinking to be what Rowan Cantuar has in mind.
That concept may meet with more opposition from the African primates than has yet been seen, particularly because their form of Anglicanism tends to be a more Evangelical, Protestant form of Anglican thinking in comparison with the more Catholic thinking of Rowan Williams. They may not accept the idea of a unified Church where that unity derives from theological principles more commonly found in the Catholic Church and in Orthodoxy. Even if the effort to move the Anglican Communion in some such direction ultimately fails, the end result of the theological process on a theological mind as deep as that of Rowan Williams may yet be fruitful, although we must then speculate in what type of Church and in what theological community his ideas may be later expressed or may find their fruition.
The concept, however workable or unworkable, presents an interesting theological effort.