Our Peace of Westphalia
For two decades, Anglicanism in North America has struggled with the debate, and the resulting fissures, over the teaching on marriage. I have been a part of that debate. It has intersected with cultural struggles, though it ought to have been, and often was, a debate over Scripture and doctrine. Both sides have sought, and sometimes failed, to be charitable along the way. Damage of various kinds has resulted for parishes, clergy, dioceses, and the Communion as a whole. And of course we live in a culturally rancorous time, which does not make matters easier.
I believe, however, that the General Convention in Louisville marked a new chapter. Something was lost, and gained, by both sides. Progressives let go of the goal of total victory. Traditionals will have to live, by 2027, in a church whose prayer book will. Have both rites, something they have tried to avoid for years. But on the other hand, we can all turn our energy to the urgent problems our Church faces. Traditionals have an assurance of the availability of the inherited rite, as well as the prerogative of the rector unimpaired. They can console themselves with the tradition that reception of doctrinal change (or not) takes a long time.
This in no way means that we should abandon theology for ‘I’m OK, you’re OK.’ We need more theological interest not less. We all believe that one teaching is true, and the other in error. But it is also true that charity in all things is a divine gift.
I am grateful to progressive colleagues in the House of Bishops who helped us at key moments. I want to give a shout out to leaders in our dioceses who were crucial in the ‘Communion Across Difference’ movement: Jordan Hylden, Christopher Wells, Matthew Olver. and others.
Brothers and sisters, we are in a new moment, perhaps one that can be compared to Westphalia, a treaty in the 17th Century between religions combatants (all Protestants!), born of not a little weariness of the conflict over many years. We need to ‘live into’ (as they say nowadays) a more complex kind of unity, one that reaches continually for the unity beneath this difference, namely the trustworthy Word, the saving cross and empty tomb, and the certainty of grace. We would do well to give thanks for this surprising light in a clearing in our ecclesial life.
Peace,
+GRS
