No Comment Necessary

I interrupt my usual blogging schedule to give you this inspirational photograph. No comment is needed, other than to encourage you to give it the widest distribution possible. God bless America, and especially those brave men and women who serve her!

(H/T: Hugh Hewitt; Blackfive)

"Know the Enemy": As the Church Formed, So It May Dissolve

[Introductory Note: This is the third in an ongoing series of posts covering the institutions that now make up The Episcopal Church. In the spirit of Sun-Tzu's maxim to "know the enemy", the series explores why and how the Church has evolved from an early branch of Anglicanism, concerned exclusively with ministering the Word and having but one bishop, into a lumbering, litigious and topheavy bureaucratic nightmare that allocates millions and millions to lawsuits and "peace and justice" causes. The first post in the series gave an historical overview of the Church's beginnings, and the second post focused on the transformation that has lately occurred in the office of the Presiding Bishop. Because of all the recent discussion about dioceses leaving the Church, I have decided in this next post to demonstrate once and for all the entirely voluntary manner in which the Church was originally formed, and in which it has (until the recent usurpations of power at the national level) been maintained over the years. This post in turn will lay the foundation for my next in-depth study of General Convention itself.]

"I. That the Episcopal Church in these States is and ought to be independent of all foreign Authority, ecclesiastical or civil.

"II. That it hath and ought to have, in common with all other religious Societies, full and exclusive Powers to regulate the Concerns of its own Communion.

"III. That the Doctrines of the Gospel be maintained as now professed by the Church of England; and Uniformity of Worship be continued, as near as may be, to the Liturgy of the said Church.

"IV. That the Succession of the Ministry be agreeably to the Usage which requireth the three Orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; that the Rights and Powers of the same respectively be ascertained, and that they be exercised according to reasonable Laws, to be duly made.

"V. That to make Canons or Laws, there be no other Authority than that of a Representative Body of the Clergy and Laity conjointly.

"VI. That no Powers be delegated to a general ecclesiastical Government, except such as cannot conveniently be exercised by the Clergy and Vestries in their respective Congregations."

With these simple declarations of principle, adopted at a meeting of clergy and laity from various congregations in the State of Pennsylvania held in Philadelphia at the end of May 1784, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America had its beginnings. The hostilities of the Revolutionary War had ended a year earlier, and the new country had come together under the loose bonds of the Articles of Confederation just two years before that. The status of entities created under the former regime was uncertain. A number of clergy in the States of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey were in particular concerned about the status of a charitable corporation that had been established many years before to provide pensions for the widows and orphans of Anglican clergy in the Colonies. The corporation had received a charter in those three Colonies, and the most pressing question was under whose auspices it should now carry on. After exchanging some correspondence, the clergy concerned agreed to meet in New Brunswick in early May, 1784 to discuss the matter. The Rev. Dr. William White (discussed in this earlier post), who attended the meeting, describes what decisions those present took, and why:

. . . there assembled some of the Clergy of New York, of New Jersey, and of Pennsylvania, in the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, in May, 1784; and there being a few respectable lay members of the Church attending on public business in the same city, their presence was desired. The immediate object of the meeting, was the revival of a charitable corporation which had existed before the Revolution, clothed with corporate powers, under the government of each of the said three provinces. The opportunity was improved by the Clergy from Pennsylvania, of communicating certain measures recently adopted in that State, tending to the organizing of the Church throughout the Union. The result was, the inviting of a more general meeting in the ensuing October . . .

In his account just quoted, Dr. White refers to "certain measures recently adopted in [the] State [of Pennsylvania], tending to the organizing of the Church throughout the Union" (emphasis added). These are the six principles quoted at the outset above. They had not, however, been adopted before the meeting in New Brunswick on May 11 which he describes; instead, they were adopted at a meeting of clergy and laity in Pennsylvania held in Philadelphia two weeks afterward. (Writing some thirty-three years later, Dr. White doubtless telescoped his memory of the two separate meetings, and reversed their order.) The meetings in 1784 had exposed the weaknesses in the individual organization of each State church, now that they no longer enjoyed the status of being established. Before the several State churches could meet together to organize a national one, they had to put their own houses in order. Pennsylvania saw that need most clearly, and was thus the first to do so, as we shall see.

From this initial account, several important observations may be drawn:

1. The first organizational meeting of Anglicans held after the War was concerned not with the formation of a national Church, but with the revival of a charitable corporation for the clergy's widows and orphans. However, the meeting led immediately to the realization that no national church could be formed until the churches had first organized, and were themselves legally recognized, in each of the several States.

2. The meeting in May 1784 was organized initially by the clergy in three States, but they recognized that under the new democratic principles established by the Revolution, only the full participation of the laity could confer legitimacy on their deliberations. Thus, "a few respectable lay members of the Church", who happened also to be in New Brunswick "on business" at the time, were also invited to attend and take part.

3. The meeting led to the early declaration of certain basic objects and principles, as points of agreement for going forward in the move to create a national Church. Among them was that while the Episcopal Church in the United States had the right to be self-governing, it was not to be subject, as was its parent Church in England, to any outside civil or ecclesiastical authority.

4. The envisioned national Church would be made up of the several churches in the individual States, and organized according to the fundamental principle that no powers be delegated to it for exercise other than those which could not "conveniently be exercised by the Clergy and Vestries in their respective Congregations."

The six "fundamental principles" agreed upon in Philadelphia in May 1784 were duly presented to the larger assembly which gathered in New York that October. It became immediately apparent that not all of the delegates attending were authorized to speak for the whole Church in their respective States. Let Dr. White again take up the account of what followed:

. . . And there appeared [at that more general meeting in October 1784] Deputies, not only from the said three States, but also from others, with the view of consulting on the exigency of the Church. The greater number of these Deputies were not vested with powers for the binding of their constituents; and therefore, although they called themselves a Convention . . . yet they were not an organized body. They did not consider themselves as such; and their only act was, the issuing of a recommendation to the churches in the several States, to unite under a few articles to be considered as fundamental. These are the articles [that I quote below:]. . .

"I. That there shall be a General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

"II. That the Episcopal Church in each State send Deputies to the Convention, consisting of Clergy and Laity.

. . .

"V. That in every State where there shall be a Bishop duly consecrated and settled, he shall be considered as a member of the Convention ex officio.

"VI. That the Clergy and the Laity assembled in Convention shall deliberate in one body, but shall vote separately. And the concurrence of both shall be necessary to give validity to every measure. . . ."

It is fashionable today, among those at 815 and their supporters, to state the proposition that "dioceses are created by General Convention, and not the other way around." This is, if I may say so, a very superficial description of the process by which dioceses come into being. And with regard to the original Colonies, as anyone can see from the foregoing account, such a contention stands history on its head. The fact is that each of the branches of the Anglican Church in the various Colonies before the War was a separate State church, and remained so after the War. They were not organized as an administrative entity before the War, even though they were each nominally supervised by the Bishop of London. Instead, each Colony adopted local legislation that imposed a tax on all citizens to support the established church in that colony, and in no other. After the War was over, a number of Colonies moved quickly to repeal the taxes, and the churches in those Colonies were thrown for support back on their own holdings (glebe lands, frequently rented out to farmers and others), as well as on voluntary contributions from the ones who actually went to church.

The first problem for the post-war Church in each new State, therefore, was to see whether or not it would be allowed to continue as the established Church in that State, and if not, how it could survive on its own. In either case, it was required that each State pass legislation to give the Church a proper legal existence, with the power to receive gifts and to hold title to land. Because a State could create a corporation only within its own territory, there were limits to which any such corporation could combine with those in other States. Thus it was not possible for the Churches in the several States to come together into one national entity other than as an unincorporated association, which was a form already recognized at common law, and which needed no kind of official charter. But such an association was made up of individual persons in the eyes of the law, and the Churches in each State could not legally be recognized as persons until they received appropriate charters from their legislatures and their governing assemblies. In this simple reality---that to be able to form a larger organization, the individual churches first had to acquire their own independent status under the laws of the State in which they met---lies the essence of what General Convention is all about, and how it first came into existence.

The entire process of going from local organization to statewide organization, and then to national organization, can be seen in the case of the Church in Pennsylvania, whose founding documents are readily available online. Follow the link just given to download the Constitution and canons of the Diocese of Pennsylvania (in their latest [2005] revision). Before the text of the Constitution begins, however, there is given the text of an "Act of Association" first adopted in May 1785, along with a supplement to it adopted the following year. It is to this Act that I wish to draw your attention.

The first thing to note is the document's full title: "An Act of Association of the Clergy and Congregations of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania." In the legal terminology of the time, an "Act of Association" such as this one fulfilled the function of what would today be called the "Articles of Association," or in other words, the constitution of the organization being formed. This is a wholly voluntary document, joined in only by those who choose to subscribe it. It binds no one other than those who sign, as well as any who have authorized those signing to do so on their behalf. If you look for a moment at the end of the Act (on pp. 5-6), you will see the names and the capacities of the individuals who subscribed: first there appear the names of five clergy, including the Rev. Dr. White himself, and who sign in their capacity as clergy of the Church. Then follow the names of eleven lay individuals who sign as deputies of their respective parishes. (Note the statement just before the names begin: "The Signing of those Deputies who were sent to the Convention without written powers, was deferred until such Powers can be procured." [Emphasis added.])

What is being brought into existence by the signing of this document is an unincorporated association of persons at common law. There is no involvement (as yet) by the State of Pennsylvania. At common law, two or more persons could voluntarily come together at any time for a common purpose, and although the law did not recognize their association as a separate entity (with the capability of holding title to property, or of suing, in its own name), it nevertheless recognized what was formed thereby as a "creature of contract." This meant that the relationship between the members of the association was defined by the contract by which they had agreed to join together. The terms of the contract are what are set out in the "articles of association." The introduction is a series of recitals that set out the events leading up to the signing of the articles, and they quote in full the two sets of "fundamental principles" agreed upon in the first two meetings.

Now take a look at some of the contract's provisions. First, the signers contract with each other to be guided and bound always by the fundamental principles already agreed upon:

And it is hereby further determined and declared by the said Clergy and Congregations, That there shall be a Convention of the said Church; which Convention shall consist of all the Clergy of the same, and of Lay Deputies; and that all the Acts and Proceedings of said Convention shall be considered as the Acts and Proceedings of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this State; provided always, That the same shall be consistent with the fundamental Principles agreed on at the two aforesaid Meetings in Philadelphia and New-York.

After making provision for voting in their Convention by orders, the clergy and congregations of Pennsylvania state their willingness to unite with the clergy and congregations of neighboring States, subject to the same "fundamental principles":

And it is hereby further determined and declared by the said Clergy and Congregations, That if the Clergy and Congregations of any adjoining State or States shall desire to unite with the Church in this State, agreeably to the fundamental Principles established at the aforesaid Meeting in New-York, then the Convention shall have Power to admit the said Clergy and Deputies from the Congregations of such adjoining State or States, to have the same Privileges, and to be subject to the same Regulations, as the Clergy and Congregations in this State.

The deputies appointed in these articles went to the first true "convention" of the nascent national church that was held in Christ Church, Philadelphia, from September 27 to October 7, 1785. The Journal of that Convention is available online, and may be downloaded and viewed in a number of different formats. In addition to their number, there were deputies from the States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. Their first order of business was to examine and approve the deputies' credentials, and then they began to deliberate, amend, and eventually adopt, each of the seven "fundamental principles" that had been stated by the delegates who came to the October 1784 meeting in New York. A separate committee was constituted to make recommendations for appropriate changes in the Book of Common Prayer and in the liturgy. At the close of the Convention, they had settled on a form of "General Ecclesiastical Constitution", in eleven articles, which they proposed for ratification by the Churches in each State. (It is reproduced on pages 21-24 of the volume linked earlier.) It began as follows:

Whereas, in the course of Divine Providence, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is become independent of all foreign authority, civil and ecclesiastical:

And whereas, at a meeting of Clerical and Lay Deputies of the said Church, in sundry of the said States, viz., in the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, held in the city of New York on the 6th and 7th days of October, in the year of our Lord, 1784, it was recommended to this Church in the said States represented as aforesaid, and proposed to this Church in the States not represented, that they should send Deputies to a Convention to be held in the city of Philadelphia, on the Tuesday before the Feast of St. Michael in this present year, in order to unite in a Constitution of ecclesiastical government, agreeably to certain fundamental principles, expressed in the said recommendation and proposal:

And whereas, in consequence of the said recommendation and proposal, Clerical and Lay Deputies have been duly appointed from the said Church in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina:

The said Deputies being now assembled, and taking into consideration the importance of maintaining uniformity in doctrine, discipline and worship in the said Church, do hereby determine, and declare,

I. That there shall be a General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, which shall be held in the city of Philadelphia on the third Tuesday in June, in the year of our Lord 1786, and for ever after once in three years, on the third Tuesday of June, in such place as shall be determined by the Convention; and special meetings may be held at such other times and in such place as shall be hereafter provided for; and this Church, in a majority of the States aforesaid, shall be represented before they proceed to business; except that the representation of this Church from two States shall be sufficient to adjourn; and in all business of the Convention freedom of debate shall be allowed.

II. There shall be a representation of both Clergy and Laity of the Church in each State, which shall consist of one or more Deputies, not exceeding four.of each Order; and in all questions, the said Church in each State shall have one vote; and a majority of suffrages shall be conclusive.

III. In the said Church in every State represented in this Convention, there shall be a Convention consisting of the Clergy and Lay Deputies of the congregation. . . .

The careful reader will note how the format used is the same as that used for the "Act of Association" adopted by the clergy and laity of Pennsylvania earlier that year. First come the recitals of the events and reasons leading up to the need for the association; then come the words of association themselves: "The said Deputies being now assembled . . . do hereby determine, and declare . . .".

The wording just quoted also makes it clear that the members of this voluntary association are the several branches of the Church organized in each separate State. Those Churches, in turn, act through designated deputies, both lay and clerical, who gather in general convention, once every three years, and who vote separately by orders. This being an episcopal church, provision is made for the expected future role of bishops (as soon as some can be ordained), and for the manner of their election, which is left to the individual Churches which they will head:

V. In every State where there shall be a Bishop duly consecrated and settled, and who shall have acceded to the articles of this General Ecclesiastical Constitution, he shall be considered as a member of the Convention ex officio.

VI. The Bishop or Bishops in every State shall be chosen agreeably to such rules as shall be fixed by the respective Conventions ; and every Bishop of this Church shall confine the exercise of his Episcopal office to his proper jurisdiction, unless requested to ordain or confirm by any church destitute of a Bishop.

The document spells out how additional Churches, not now represented at the Convention, may become members upon "acceding to the articles of this union" (emphasis added), and provides that clergy are to be subject to the authority of their respective State conventions:

VII. A Protestant Episcopal Church in any of the United States not now represented, may at any time hereafter be admitted, on acceding to the articles of this union.

VIII. Every clergyman, whether bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, shall be amenable to the authority of the Convention in the State to which he belongs, so far as relates to suspension or removal from office; and the Convention in each State shall institute rules for their conduct, and an equitable mode of trial.

It closes with provisions for ratifying a Book of Common Prayer, for a uniform oath to be taken by all clergy before ordination, and for its adoption by the Churches in each State. Its last clause is a restatement of the contract principle on which it is based, namely, that no party to a contract may alter it unilaterally, without the consent of the other parties: "This General Ecclesiastical Constitution, when ratified by the Church in the different States, shall be considered as fundamental, and shall be unalterable by the Convention of the Church in any State."

At the same Convention in 1785, a committee was appointed to draft a request to the bishops of England that they might allow suitable candidates for the office of bishop, once presented, to be consecrated there, in order to preserve the apostolic succession. The text of the resolution approving the formal request shows further how the new Church then regarded itself as a confederation of independent State churches (modeled, indeed, on the country itself as it was then organized), each of which had the ability to nominate and propose a bishop of its own, and how they were aware of the delicate political considerations which would attend their separate requests, coming from different sovereign States of the Confederation. The deputies resolved (I have added the italics, for emphasis):

I. That this Convention address the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, requesting them to confer the Episcopal character on such persons as shall be chosen and recommended to them for that purpose from the Conventions of this Church in the respective States.

II. That it be recommended to the said Conventions that they elect persons for this purpose.

. . .

IV. That it be further recommended to the different Conventions, that they pay especial attention to the making it appear to their Lordships, that the persons who shall be sent to them for consecration are desired in the character of Bishops, as well by the Laity as by the Clergy of this Church in the said States, respectively; and that they will be received by them in that character on their return.

V. And in order to assure their Lordships of the legality of the present proposed application, that 'the Deputies now assembled be desired to make a respectful address to the civil rulers of the States in which they respectively reside, to certify that the said application is not contrary to the Constitutions and laws of the same.

VI. And whereas the Bishops of this Church will not be entitled to any of such temporal honors as are due to the Archbishops and Bishops of the parent Church, in quality of Lords of Parliament; and whereas the reputation and usefulness of our Bishops will considerably depend on their taking no higher titles or stile than will be due to their spiritual employments; that it be recommended to this Church, in the States here represented, to provide that their respective Bishops may be called " The Right Rev. A. B., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in C. D.," and, as Bishop, may have no other title, and may not use any such stile as is usually descriptive of temporal power and precedency.

Most significant and revealing of all, perhaps, is not how the nascent Church explained and justified itself in its own resolutions, but how it described and portrayed itself to its ecclesiological parent, the Church of England. As you read the following petition to the Lords Spiritual, I would ask that you silently contrast its manner and tone with that shown to the same authorities by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church in 2003:

TO THE MOST REVEREND AND RIGHT REVEREND THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY AND YORK, AND THE BISHOPS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

We, the Clerical and Lay Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in sundry of the United States of America, think it our duty to address your Lordships on a subject deeply interesting, not only to ourselves and those whom we represent, but, as we conceive, to the common cause of Christianity.

Our forefathers, when they left the land of their nativity, did not leave the bosom of that Church over which your Lordships now preside ; but, as well from a veneration for Episcopal government, as from an attachment to the admirable services of our Liturgy, continued in willing connection with their ecclesiastical superiors in England, and were subjected to many local inconveniences, rather than break the unity of the Church to which they belonged.

When it pleased the Supreme Ruler of the universe, that this part of the British empire should be free, sovereign, and independent, it became the most important concern of the members of our Communion to provide for its continuance. And while, in accomplishing of this, they kept in view that wise and liberal part of the system of the Church of England which excludes as well the claiming as the acknowledging of such spiritual subjection as may be inconsistent with the civil duties of her children; it was nevertheless their earnest desire and resolution to retain the venerable form of Episcopal government handed down to them, as they conceive, from the time of the Apostles, and endeared to them by the remembrance of the holy Bishops of the primitive Church, of the blessed Martyrs who reformed the doctrine and worship of the Church of England, and of the many great and pious Prelates who have adorned that Church in every succeeding age. But however general the desire of compleating the Orders of our Ministry, so diffused and unconnected were the members of our Communion over this extensive country, that much time and negociation were necessary for the forming a representative body of the greater number of Episcopalians in these States ; and owing to the same causes, it was not until this Convention that sufficient powers could be procured for the addressing your Lordships on this subject.

The petition which we offer to your Venerable Body is, that from a tender regard to the religious interests of thousands in this rising empire, professing the same religious principles with the Church of England, you will be pleased to confer the Episcopal character on such persons as shall be recommended by this Church in the several States here represented, full satisfaction being given of the sufficiency of the persons recommended, and of its being the intention of the general body of the Episcopalians in the said States respectively, to receive them in the quality of Bishops.

Whether this our request will meet with insurmountable impediments, from the political regulations of the kingdom in which your Lordships fill such distinguished stations, it is not for us to foresee. We have not been ascertained that any such will exist; and are humbly of opinion, that as citizens of these States, interested in their prosperity, and religiously regarding the allegiance which we owe them, it is to an ecclesiastical source only we can apply in the present exigency.

It may be of consequence to observe, that in these States there is a separation between the concerns of policy and those of religion; that, accordingly, our civil rulers cannot officially join in the present application; that, however, we are far from apprehending the opposition or even displeasure of any of those honorable personages; and finally, that in this business we are justified by the Constitutions of the States, which are the foundations and controul of all our laws. On this point we beg leave to refer to the enclosed extracts from the Constitutions of the respective States of which we are citizens, and we flatter ourselves that they must be
satisfactory.

Thus, we have stated to your Lordships the nature and the grounds of our application; which we have thought it most respectful and most suitable to the magnitude of the object, to address to your Lordships for your deliberation before any person is sent over to carry them into effect.

Whatever may be the event, no time will efface the remembrance of the past services of your Lordships and your predecessors. The Archbishops of Canterbury were not prevented, even by the weighty concerns of their high stations, from attending to the interests of this distant branch of the Church under their care. The Bishops of London were our Diocesans; and the uninterrupted although voluntary submission of our congregations, will remain a perpetual proof of their mild and paternal government. All the Bishops of England, with other distinguished characters, as well ecclesiastical as civil, have concurred in forming and carrying on the benevolent views of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts : a Society to whom, under God, the prosperity of our Church is in an eminent degree to be ascribed. It is our earnest wish to be permitted to make, through your Lordships, this just acknowledgment to that venerable Society; a tribute of gratitude which we the rather take this opportunity of paying, as while they thought it necessary to withdraw their pecuniary assistance from our Ministers, they have endeared their past favors by a benevolent declaration, that it is far from their thoughts to alienate their affection from their brethren now under another government with the pious wish, that their former exertions may still continue to bring forth the fruits they aimed at of pure religion and virtue. Our hearts are penetrated with the most lively gratitude by these generous sentiments; the long succession of former benefits passes in review before us; we pray that our Church may be a lasting monument of the usefulness of so worthy a body; and that her sons may never cease to be kindly affectioned to the members of that Church, the Fathers of which have so tenderly watched over her infancy.

For your Lordships in particular, we most sincerely wish and pray, that you may long continue the ornaments of the Church of England, and at last receive the reward of the righteous from the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls.

We are, with all the respect which is due to your exalted and venerable characters and stations,

Your Lordships Most obedient and Most humble Servants,

SIGNED BY THE CLERICAL AND LAY DEPUTIES
OF THE CONVENTION.

IN CONVENTION:
Christ Church, Philadelphia.
October 5th, 1785.

The contrast between then and now is striking, is it not? In 1785, we were the upstart, the nouvelle arrivèe, who had no claim to any kind of deference or authority. But by 2003, we were supremely confident of our ability to dictate to our parent Church the terms on which the Anglican Communion would continue to have meaning for us. (As with cabbages, so with churches: "Excess water taken up . . . causes head to burst. . . Plant recommended variety.")

The Lords Spiritual sent in February 1786 a gracious response to the humble petition of the new church, in which they expressed their Christian desire to comply "with the prayer of your address." (See pp. 36-37 of the previous link.) However, they first asked for assurances lest, "in the proceedings of your Convention [as had been reported to them "through private and less certain channels"], some alterations may have been adopted or intended, which those difficulties [in the situation as previously described to them] do not seem to justify."

This was an oblique reference to a number of changes which the 1785 Convention had countenanced in the Book of Common Prayer and in the Anglican liturgy: out of an excess of piety, perhaps, the Convention had dropped the phrase "He descended into Hell" from the Apostle's Creed; it had dropped the Nicene Creed altogether from the liturgy; and made several other changes. But the Bishops were even more concerned about something else: the consecration, in Scotland in November 1784, of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury of Connecticut, and to his subsequent welcome and investiture as a bishop in the Episcopal Church of Connecticut. Since his consecrators were all non-juring bishops who did not swear any oath of allegiance to the current King of England (continuing a practice begun following their predecessors' refusal to acknowledge William of Orange as King after the deposition of King James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688), the bishops of the Church of England felt they could have nothing to do with a Church that recognized the validity of orders conferred through so questionable a source. In their undeniably eloquent circumlocution:

For while we are anxious to give every proof, not only of our brotherly affection, but of our facility in forwarding your wishes, we cannot but be extremely cautious, lest we should be the instruments of establishing an Ecclesiastical system which will be called a branch of the Church of England, but afterwards may possibly appear to have departed from it essentially, either in doctrine or in discipline.

The deputies to the General Convention would not deal with this reply until their meeting the following summer, in June 1786. Meanwhile, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania held a subsequent convention in Philadelphia in May 1786, at which the following supplement to the earlier Act of Association was adopted:

WHEREAS, Doubts have arisen whether under the Act of Association any alterations can be made in the Book of Common Prayer and the Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies, of the Church, except such as become necessary in consequence of the late Revolution:

It is, therefore, hereby determined and declared, That further alterations may be made by the Convention, constituted by the said Act, provided only that “the main body and essentials” be preserved, and alterations made in such forms only as the Church of England hath herself acknowledged to be indifferent and alterable.

And it is hereby further determined and declared, That the power given by this supplement to the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this State, may, by the said Convention, be conveyed to a Convention of the said Church in the United States, or in such States as are willing to unite in a constitution of ecclesiastical government, if the same shall be judged most conducive to charity and uniformity of worship.

Note the condition placed on the deputies' authority to agree to a national church constitution: "if the same shall be judged most conducive to charity and uniformity of worship."

The draft Constitution approved in 1785 had called for the convening of a General Convention "on the third Tuesday in June, in the year of our Lord 1786, and forever after once in three years . . . ." The appointed deputies duly met in Christ Church, Philadelphia on that date. However, the request by the English bishops to receive further proofs of the Americans' good faith, and the ensuing doubts about the consequences of Bishop Seabury's ordination at the hands of nonjuring bishops, prevented the latter from going forward with their plans to ratify the draft Constitution and to organize the Church. There was a particular concern expressed by the deputies over the validity of the orders of any clergy whom Bishop Seabury might ordain in the Church in Connecticut. The Journal of June 1786 (which begins on p. 35 in the link previously given) tells the story:

Resolved, That this Convention entertain a grateful sense of the Christian affection and condescension manifested in this [response from the English bishops]. And whereas it appears that the venerable Prelates have heard, through private channels, that the Church here represented have adopted, or intended, such alterations as would be an essential deviation from the Church of England, this Convention trust that they shall be able to give such information to those venerable Prelates, as will satisfy them that no such alterations have been adopted or intended. . . .

A motion made by the Rev. Mr. Provost, and seconded by the Rev. Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, viz., That this Convention will resolve to do no act that shall imply the validity of ordinations made by Dr. Seabury.

The previous question was moved by Dr. Smith, seconded by Dr. White, viz., Shall this question be now put? and carried in the affirmative. The main question was then proposed and determined in the negative, as follows:

New York, Aye; New Jersey, Aye; Pennsylvania, No; Delaware, No; Maryland, No; Virginia, No; South Carolina, Aye.

On motion made by Dr. White, and seconded by Mr. Smith, of South Carolina,
Resolved unanimously, That it be recommended to this Church in the States here represented, not to receive to the pastoral charge, within their respective limits, Clergymen professing canonical subjection to any Bishop, in any State or country, other than those Bishops who may be duly settled in the States represented in this Convention.

Again we see from the actions thus taken how the nascent American Church was behaving like a confederation of dioceses, and not like a hierarchical body. The deputies were greatly troubled by the actions of the clergy in Connecticut, who on their own had elected a Bishop and sent him first to England, and then to Scotland, to be ordained in the apostolic succession. That action now threatened their ability to receive ordinations for their own candidates from the Church of England. Yet they could not simply enact a measure that presumed to pronounce his orders invalid, or that would restrain Connecticut's right to do as it chose. The most they saw themselves able to do was to "recommend to the Church in the States here represented" that they not allow any clergy ordained by Bishop Seabury to function within their borders.

The deputies in June 1786 took up the draft Constitution on second reading, and made further changes to it. In particular, they clarified the last article (Art. XI, quoted earlier), so that it now was a more accurate statement of the contract principle which underlay the entire document (I have added the italics, for emphasis):

This Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, when ratified by the Church in a majority of the States, assembled in General Convention, with sufficient power for the purpose of such ratification, shall be unalterable by the Convention of any particular State, which hath been represented at the time of said ratification.

In response to the request from the English Bishops for more assurances, the deputies each subscribed a letter with which they enclosed a copy of the full Book of Common Prayer as they had theretofore app0roved it, and a copy of the newly revised Ecclesiastical Constitution. The letter is once again important as showing beyond doubt the deputies' understanding of the capacity in which they each acted:

TO THE MOST REVEREND AND RIGHT REVEREND FATHERS IN GOD, THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Most Worthy and Venerable Prelates :

We, the Clerical and Lay Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, have received the friendly and affectionate letter which your Lordships did us the honour to write on the 24th day of February, and for which we request you to accept our sincere and grateful acknowledgments.

It gives us pleasure to be assured, that the success of our application will probably meet with no greater obstacles than what have arisen from doubts respecting the extent of the alterations we have made and proposed; and we are happy to learn, that as no political impediments oppose us here, those which at present exist in England may be removed.

While doubts remain of our continuing to hold the same essential articles of faith and discipline with the Church of England, we acknowledge the propriety of suspending a compliance with our request.

We are unanimous and explicit in assuring your Lordships, that we neither have departed, nor propose to depart from the doctrines of your Church. . . .

With the sending of this letter and its enclosures, the Convention adjourned until a reply was received. It reconvened in Wilmington, Delaware on October 10, 1786 (p. 51 of the previous link) to consider the Archbishops' response, which was full of detailed objections to the changes that had been made in the Prayer Book and the liturgy. The response also spent considerable detail on the kinds of testimonials that their Lordships would require of any candidate presented for ordination as a Bishop. They would require, they said, detailed proofs and witness of the candidate's "sufficiency in good learning . . . [and] purity of manners":

. . . the reputation of the Church, both in England and America, and the interest of our common Christianity is so deeply concerned in it, that we feel it our indispensible duty to provide, on this subject, the most effectual securities. . . . The testimonials signed by persons living in England admit of reference and examination, and the characters of those who give them are subject to scrutiny, and in cases of criminal deceit, to punishment. In proportion as these circumstances are less applicable to testimonials from America, those testimonials must be more explicit, and supported by a greater number of signatures. . . . More specific declarations must be made by the members of the Convention in each State from which the persons offered for consecration are respectively recommended ; their personal knowledge of them there can be no doubt of; we trust, therefore, they will have no objection to the adoption of the form of a testimonial which is annexed, and drawn upon the same principles, and containing the same attestations of personal knowledge with that above mentioned, as required previously to our Ordinations: we trust we shall receive these testimonials signed by such a majority in each Convention that recommend, as to leave no doubt of the fitness of the candidates upon the minds of those whose consciences are concerned in the consecration of them.

There could not be a plainer statement of the concern with which the English Bishops regarded the bestowing of episcopal orders upon one who would not be a part of their own Church, but who would help to found a new church, in a new world. Once again, the contrast between the Americans' respect for the Anglican orders in 1786, and their headlong and arrogant flouting of those orders in 2003, could hardly be more striking. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned humility?

The deputies in October 1786 made the restorations to the Apostle's Creed and the Prayer Book which the English bishops had asked of them, and acquiesced in other requested changes as well. (The one point on which they would not give in demonstrated the heart of the new American polity: they retained the right of the laity to participate in the trial of a Bishop, while providing that only a bishop could pronounce sentence on anothe2r bishop.) At the end of the Convention, they all signed the requested testimonials for William White, Samuel Provoost, and David Griffith, who had been elected by their respective churches in Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia to become bishops, and bade them Godspeed on their voyage to England to be ordained. (As explained in this previous post, David Griffith of Virginia was finally unable to raise the necessary funds for the trip, and having offered his resignation, would die during the next Convention without ever having been consecrated.)

When they next met in Convention in New York, from July 28 to August 8, 1789, the assembled deputies greeted two of their number who were now fully consecrated diocesans. But they were without any representation from Connecticut, or the other New England States beyond New York. The Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, ordained Bishop of Connecticut by Scottish nonjuring bishops, wrote the Convention that he could not attend, or allow a delegation from his Church to attend, because of the resolutions adopted in 1786 (quoted above) which appeared to call into question the validity of his orders. The Journal records (p. 71):

A letter was also read from the Right Rev. Dr. Seabury, Bishop of the Church in Connecticut, to the Right Rev. Dr. White, and one from the same gentleman to the Rev. Dr. Smith.

Upon reading the said letters, it appearing that Bishop Seabury lay under some misapprehensions concerning an entry in the Minutes of a former Convention, as intending some doubt of the validity of his consecration,

Resolved unanimously, That it is the opinion of this Convention, that the consecration of the Right Rev. Dr. Seabury to the Episcopal office is valid.

This issue was tested again by the delivery to the Convention of a petition from the clergy of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, addressed to Bishops Seabury, Provoost and White, and asking their cooperation in ordaining to the episcopacy the candidate whom they had elected, the Rev. Edward Bass, of St. Paul's in Newburyport. Three bishops were necessary for a consecration, but since the English bishops had now acted on the request to ordain the new American candidates, there was less concern over giving offense by allowing Dr. Seabury to participate in establishing the succession on the new continent. After several days of deliberation, the following pragmatic resolution of the situation was adopted (Journal, pp. 74-75):

1st. Resolved, That a complete Order of Bishops, derived as well under the English as the Scots line of Episcopacy, doth now subsist within the United States of America, in the persons of the Right Rev. William White, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania; the Right Rev. Samuel Provost, D.D., Bishop of the said Church in the State of New York, and the Right Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., Bishop of the said Church in the State of Connecticut.

2d. Resolved, That the said three Bishops are fully competent to every proper act and duty of the Episcopal office and character in these United States, as well in respect to the consecration of other Bishops, and the ordering of Priests and Deacons, as for the government of the Church, according to such rules, Canons, and institutions as now are, or hereafter may be duly made and ordained by the Church in that case.

3d. Resolved, That in Christian charity, as well as of duty, necessity, and expediency, the Churches represented in this Convention ought to contribute, in every manner in their power, towards supplying the wants, and granting every just and reasonable request of their sister Churches in these States; and, therefore,

4th, Resolved, Tha.t the Right Rev. Dr. White and the Right Rev. Dr. Provost be, and they hereby are requested to join with the Right Rev. Dr. Seabury, in complying with the prayer of the Clergy of the States of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, for the consecration of the Rev. Edward Bass, Bishop elect of the Churches in the said States; but that, before the said Bishops comply with the request aforesaid, it be proposed to the Churches in the New England States to meet the Churches of these States, with the said three Bishops, in an adjourned Convention, to settle certain articles of union and discipline among all the churches, previous to such consecration.

5th. Resolved, That if any difficulty or delicacy, in respect to the Archbishops and Bishops of England, shall remain with the Right Rev. Drs. White and Provost, or either of them, concerning their compliance with the above request, this Convention will address the Archbishops and Bishops, and hope thereby to remove the difficulty.

As I have related in this earlier post, that is what in fact subsequently occurred. Negotiations with Bishop Seabury to define and establish the powers of a second chamber, a House of Bishops, were successfully concluded, and the Convention resumed in New York in October with Bishop Seabury and deputies from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire in attendance. The newly amended Constitution was approved and subscribed by all those present, and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was born.

It is fascinating to read this entry on page 98 of the Journal, along with the separate journals that thereafter follow (I have added the emphasis):

HERE ends the Journal of the proceedings of the Convention, as consisting of a single House. The Journals of the two Houses will now follow, separately; to which will be prefixed the General Ecclesiastical Constitution, as subscribed and entered on the Book of Records, which will answer the intention, as well of exhibiting a List of the Members of both Houses in Convention, as of defining their separate rights and powers.

It is thus to the Constitution, and only to the Constitution, that one must look to discern the nature of the contractual and legal relationships among the several member Churches that were established by that document, and which continue to this day. (For a full text of the Constitution which emerged from the compromise made with Bishop Seabury in 1789, please see this post.) The Church was begun as an unincorporated association of separate and independent Churches at common law. As new dioceses were created and added, they signified their joinder by adopting governing instruments in which they "acceded" to this Constitution. The result was the same as though they had authorized deputies to attend the Convention in 1789 and subscribe their names. As Mark McCall has demonstrated from contemporary legal sources, such an act of "accession" was the voluntary act of a sovereign and independent entity in its own right, and can as freely be undone as done.

Indeed, The Episcopal Church is still a creature of the common law. It has never formally registered itself as an unincorporated association "organized under the laws of State X." (Being a common-law association, it does not have to; most States do not have any registration requirement for unincorporated associations. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, which is the Church's corporate vehicle to hold title to property and to receive gifts and bequests, is organized as a New York religious corporation.)

But that common-law freedom of association carries with it a corresponding common-law duty to respect the right of individual members to leave should they choose to do so. It is of the essence of a common-law association that membership in it is voluntary.

To clinch the point, let us go back to the Constitution of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, which was first drafted in 1814 to supplant the Act of Association signed in 1785. Like the Act of Association, it has a series of recitals describing the events leading up to its execution. It thereby furnishes us with another contemporary witness to the intent of those who came together under the first Episcopal Constitution:

WHEREAS, By an Act of Association, agreed to and adopted in Convention, on the 24th day of May, 1785, sundry of the Protestant Episcopal Churches within this Commonwealth were united under the name of “The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania”—which Association embraced all those Clergy and congregations who did at that time, or subsequently, assent to the same:

AND WHEREAS, After that time, in General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Churches within the United States, a Constitution and Canons were formed for the government and discipline of the same, which recognized each State as constituting a District or Diocese, with a right to the Churches within the same to exercise a local government over themselves; which right has been accordingly exercised by the Protestant Episcopal Churches within the State of Pennsylvania, associated as aforesaid . . .

(Emphasis added.) The "members" of the unincorporated Episcopal Church, as the foregoing account of its beginnings inescapably shows, are the individual dioceses that have always constituted it, from the very first meeting in 1785, and they are in law free to come and to go, as they in fact did during the Civil War.

Those who still want to contend that dioceses can never leave The Episcopal Church have neither law nor history on their side.

The Madness of Politicians

In 1841, the Scottish poet, journalist and song writer (!) Charles Mackay published in London a work entitled Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, which dealt with such phenomena as witches, demons, haunted houses, and the "Popular Admiration of Great Thieves" (including Robin Hood). Its first three chapters, however, have proved the most enduring, as they have never been out of print since. They covered "Money Mania---The Mississippi Scheme", "The South Sea Bubble", and "Tulipomania"---three of the most notable financial scams of the eighteenth century. When the book was expanded in subsequent editions, the full title became Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and that is how you may purchase it today. 

The theme upon which Mackay launched his fame as a political journalist has since been referred to by the latter part of his title, "the madness of crowds." Another European author, Elias Canetti, won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his book Crowds and Power, first published in 1960, which updated and extended Mackay's study to the early part of the twentieth century.

It seems to me, however, that both Mackay and Canetti have covered only half of the territory. There is a necessary prerequisite, I would submit, to all "madness of crowds," and that is first what I shall dub "the madness of politicians", or in other words, the tendency of politicians to throw all caution to the wind in their greed to be re-elected. They will promise anything, say anything---no matter how outrageous we all know it is---if they believe it has any chance of gaining a temporary advantage over their opponents in the election. And once they have thus gone out on their political limb, the "madness of crowds" takes over. The masses willingly suspend their disbelief in the candidate's promises so as not to interfere with the momentum of the campaign, the political bandwagon on which their favorite is for the time being propelled.

The child who spoke the truth that no one else dared to utter: "But the emperor has no clothes!"---could succeed in doing so only because the emperor had no opponents; he was supreme in his power, and therefore (paradoxically) vulnerable to the plainspoken honesty of a child. But the politicians running for office, who pander throughout their interminable campaigns to our needs and desires, do so as part of a now well-established social convention, which no amount of honesty can bring down. Instead, the pricks and barbs of an opponent are seen as partisan politics, which have no truth value precisely because they come on behalf of one who is equally desirous of being elected.  

With that as background, I want to give you the opening paragraph of a recent article which I commend to your attention:

Fueled by easy credit, the real-estate market had been rising swiftly for some years. Members of Congress were determined to assure the continuation of that easy credit. Suddenly, the party came to a devastating halt. Defaults multiplied, banks began to fail. Soon the economic troubles spread beyond real estate. Depression stalked the land.

Does this sound familiar? Does the author seem to you to be describing recent events in our land?

Think again. His next paragraph is just these four words:

The year was 1836.

He continues with this overview of his thesis:

The nexus of excess speculation, political mischief, and financial disaster—the same tangle that led to our present economic crisis—has been long and deep. Its nature has changed over the years as Americans have endeavored, with varying success, to learn from the mistakes of the past. But it has always been there, and the commonalities from era to era are stark and stunning. Given the recurrence of these themes over the course of three centuries, there is every reason to believe that similar calamities will beset the system as long as human nature and human action play a role in the workings of markets.

The article is from the current issue of Commentary magazine, and will be available for reading and download online only for a few more weeks. (After that it goes into the magazine's online archive, which you have to pay to access if you are not a subscriber.) So I urge you to download or print it out here, and to take your time in reading and absorbing its lessons.

The author, John Steele Gordon, has published An Empire of Wealth: the Epic History of American Economic Power, and is qualified to address his subject, which I am calling "the madness of politicians." For what you will read about is how the best intentions of statesmen---to keep the economy on a sound footing, to enable the people to prosper and grow wealthy---become subverted when those good intentions become instead a label with which to camouflage a desire to acquire, to wield, or to remain in, power for its own sake. In 1836, President Jackson thought he could curb the expansion of the very state banks whose creation he had encouraged, as a means of destroying the national bank which he had despised from the moment he entered office. He ordered that the United States Land Office accept only gold and silver in payment for the purchase of all the land available through the Western expansion. This cut off the ability of the land speculators to use paper bank notes, and the result was a collapse in real estate prices, followed (as loans were called in) by a "credit crunch" fully as severe as today's: there first occurred the Panic of 1837, in which many banks and businesses failed. Next came the longest depression the United States has ever endured to date, as the politicians tried in vain to restore confidence in the national monetary system which their ignorant misuses of power, and attempts to play favorites, had helped to destroy.

Similarly, Mr. Gordon explains how the current credit crunch grew inevitably out of the politicians' commendable desire, first, to see that more people could own their own homes, followed by the realization that if such a goal could be achieved, the new owners' gratitude could be converted into votes for the politicians' re-election. And such a coupling led to the refusal to impose any meaningful regulation on what mortgages could be underwritten, out of fear both that rejected home applicants would in turn reject the politicians who sought their vote, and that the spigot of contributions from those who were being paid to recruit the subprime borrowers would shut down.

Many historians recount the following incident about Benjamin Franklin:

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, she asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" 

"A republic, if you can keep it", responded Franklin.

The intent behind Franklin's sage reply is the subject of another very worthwhile article in the current issue of The Claremont Review of Books. James W. Ceaser, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, describes the founders' expectations in establishing the electoral college as an integral part of selecting a president, and goes on to show how the establishment of political parties completely subverted those designs after President Washington's initial two terms. 

(Something similar has occurred in the evolution of The Episcopal Church. I have already published two studies [here and here] of how its institutions have in recent years deviated markedly from the original intent of its founders, with results that are devastating to its vitality and sustained membership. I hope to put up another post in the series soon, as I complete my research on the fascinating history---and devolution from its original function---of the Church's General Convention.)

Exactly as The Episcopal Church is now risking its own future, I daresay that we are engaged in an experiment that is vital to the future of this country, and to whether it will survive as the republic that our founders handed to us after that Constitutional Convention of 1789 (the same year in which, only weeks later, the "Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America" adopted its own Constitution). President-elect Obama, being no fool, is not unaware of the dimensions of the crisis which he stands to inherit on January 20. In an effort to avoid being tagged with its consequences---and so ending up, like Jimmy Carter, a one-term failure as a president---he is floating balloons of new federal schemes on a scale that will dwarf the New Deal of 1933 to 1941 under President Roosevelt. The question is not whether such plans can succeed, but whether they can even be implemented on the scale that is contemplated. 

Just as there is a limit on the ability of The Episcopal Church to attract new members by championing the non-existent "right" of active homosexuals to be ordained, in plain violation of Holy Scripture (there are only so many gay activists out there, after all, who along with their enablers can be recruited to replace the orthodox who leave), so there is, after all, a limit even to the almighty power of the Fed to print paper money---it has to find willing buyers for its bonds. In a depression---for that is what the previous madness of the politicians is about to deal us---the investors will first rush to the Treasury as presenting the only supposedly "safe harbor" in a world of constantly shrinking capital. Demand for bonds will at first rise, leading to lower and lower interest rates. But as the sheer volume of money created rises without apparent limit, when the Treasury floods the firms of the insiders and the well-connected with new capital to replace that which is continually disappearing (and which in the process of replacement is multiplied ten times and more), the creditworthiness of the United States itself will be increasingly called into question. At some point, inflation will run out of control, the game will be over, and government paper will sink to the low repute it enjoyed at the end of the great depression of 1837-1843. (As Mr. Gordon reminds us, it was in 1843, when Charles Dickens published his immortal A Christmas Carol, that his equally immortal character Ebenezer Scrooge---who knew his financial paper---could speak witheringly of "a mere United States' security.")

We have already seen the madness of politicians set the stage for what is to follow, in their crazy rush to approve a completely undefined and unsupervised bailout of Wall Street insiders to the tune of $700,000,000,000.00. Such a mad dash to appropriate your taxpayer dollars in a useless effort to stave off catastrophe has thus far resulted only in a further collapse of the investment markets, which see that there is no vehicle of recovery in place, but only a great deal of smoke and mirrors trying to hide what is the granddaddy of all insider-rigged games. 

Indeed, it is only fear of the public's reaction to even more failure that has kept the lawmakers from voting a further bailout to the automakers, in an effort to save union members' pensions that will do nothing in the long run to keep the automakers themselves in business. It is perhaps ironic in the extreme that the millionaire CEO's of the Big Three could not, in their pure capitalistic simplicity, provide Congress with enough cover to vote the money which the unions sent them to get. Even a drowning man, however, knows that it will do no good to throw him a new coat, so that he can go down in style. The CEO's simply could not mount a coherent lie that the bailout funds would serve any better purpose. But our politicians, being focused only on the short term, lack even the common sense of a drowning man, and so they are determined to launch the idiotic scheme yet again, early next month. So what if the Big Three go under in 2009? The Democrats can always blame the bankruptcies on the refusal of President Bush to go along with their bailout earlier. But with President Obama's prompt approval of a bailout upon taking office, the unions' pensions will be funded, and that means a big gain in votes for the Democrats in 2010.

President-elect Obama has only a slightly longer horizon in mind---until the 2012 presidential election. Since he has been handed virtually a blank check with confirmed majorities in both Houses of Congress, he perceives at this point no restraint on his powers. We are about to pay the ultimate price for the madness of our politicians, a price that comes from the total and utter subversion of the founders' firm convictions, grounded in years of practical political experience with factions and parties, of how best to elect a president. 

We are now a country totally at the mercy of factions and their enablers in the media, who with their selfish and short-term perspective are simply incapable of focusing on the longer-term interests of the republic that we have inherited. Those factions, united for the time being, now control the Congress and the White House. They and the politicians they have put into office have one, and only one, object in mind: to ensure those politicians' re-election, at whatever cost to the republic---even if it should turn out that there will be no more elections. (As in the fable of the scorpion and the frog, they will still be priding themselves on their ability to "be true to their nature", i.e., to remain in charge of dole-outs, even as they sap the lifeblood of the republic.) The madness of politicians is once again setting the stage for the madness of crowds that will surely follow, as the night the day, and as with each such mania in the past.

Karl Marx once observed: "Hegel remarked somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." To which I would add: "and if it should be---God forbid!---for the third time, as an orgy of self-destruction."

Pray for your republic, that it survive the coming stings of the scorpions crowded on its back, who after all are being true only to their nature.

How to Wreck the Anglican Communion

The uncanonical depositions of Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan by the House of Bishops, based in each case a vote by less than the number of bishops required by the Canons, have tended to draw attention to the argument over the proper number of votes required. I have dealt with that issue in a number of previous posts: they are listed in the Guide to This Site under the heading "The Presiding Bishop Defi[l]es the Canons." What I would like to do in this post is focus attention on how the House of Bishops' misreading of the Abandonment Canon (Canon IV.2) is undermining the collegiality on which the Anglican Communion was first founded.

[UPDATE - BREAKING: See the important new and comprehensive paper on the general topic of this post, written by the Rev. Dr. Philip Turner of the Anglican Communion Institute.]

Each of the three bishops was charged with having "abandon[ed] the communion of this Church" ---in the case of Bishop Cox, by having performed actions on behalf of, or (in the case of Bishop Schofield) by having participated in steps to have a diocese leave The Episcopal Church for, or (in the case of Bishop Duncan) by having contemplated the taking of such steps to leave for, another church in the Anglican Communion.

You see, the problem in each case with such a charge is that if the word "communion" is defined as "the fellowship and rites as shared with each other by communicants of The Episcopal Church", which is how Bishop Jefferts Schori and all the bishops voting for the phony depositions defined it, then there results a slight logical problem with interpreting the next phrase of the language of Canon IV.9. The reason is that the same word "communion" is used again, but this time in an obviously different sense. Here is the language of the first two phrases; see for yourself:

If a Bishop abandons the communion of this Church (i) by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline, or Worship of this Church, or (ii) by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with the same . . .

Do you see the problem? The second time it is used, the word "communion" clearly refers to the common rites and liturgy that The Episcopal Church shares with all the other churches in the Anglican Communion. In fact, "religious body in communion with this Church" describes not only the other churches of the Anglican Communion, but also Churches whose orders TEC recognizes through formal agreement, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. So the liberals' illogic has them reading the word in a very narrow sense the first time it is used, and which clearly contradicts the sense in which it is used just a few words later.

The result is a self-isolating construct. By so reading their Canon, the Bishops have fenced off their own narrow "communion" from the communion shared by all Churches in the Anglican Communion. The inevitable consequence of such a staking out of private territory in the religious domain is, as it ever was in the sordid annals of church history, disagreement and discord. In short, the Bishops' pettifoggery with their Canons is wrecking their own Church---and in the process, the larger Anglican Communion itself.

Consider, first, those voices within TEC, on both sides of the aisle, who agree that the depositions of Bishops Cox and Schofield were uncanonical---voices as disparate as Dean Robert Munday of Nashotah House Seminary and D. C. Toedt, a lawyer who blogs as The Questioning Christian.

Next, consider the dioceses within TEC which refused to recognize the validity of the depositions: Northern Indiana, Springfield, Central Florida, Western Louisiana, and South Carolina. This had the immediate effect of creating enclaves within TEC itself which did not accept the actions of the House---not unlike, to be sure, those dioceses which have indicated they will not be bound by the resolutions of General Convention, such as Resolution B033 of 2006 regarding consents to ordination. However, the result was, as already noted, the exacerbation of a tendency to repudiate the national authority of the Church, a tendency which had already begun with the actions of GC 2003, and even earlier.

With its similarly unlawful deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan, the House has now greatly magnified the level of protests over and refusals to recognize its actions, which now threaten to become a cataract spilling over into the Anglican Communion as a whole. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has refused to recognize the validity of Bishop Schofield's deposition, and has continued to receive Bishop Duncan at Lambeth both before and after his "deposition."

How can the Bishops who voted to depose possibly insist on such a blinkered reading of the language, when it is bringing about the very phenomenon they are describing in their interpretation? In other words, they are reading the Canon to define into existence a "communion" of The Episcopal Church that is completely separate and apart from the communion of the Anglican Communion as a whole---and by the act of so reading and applying their Canon, they are bringing that separate and isolated "communion" into existence.

They embrace this tragic result by focusing on just the word "Discipline" in the first part of the definition. For the liberals, to leave TEC for another church or province in the Anglican Communion is "an open renunciation of the . . . Discipline . . . of this Church." (In fact, in the case of Bishop Duncan, they considered him to have violated the Canon simply by stating his future intention to leave the Church.) But the problem with that reading of the language is that the second phrase of the canonical definition of "abandonment" would have to read like this:

If a Bishop abandons the communion of this Church (i) by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline, or Worship of this Church, or (ii) by formal admission into any other religious body whatsoever . . .

And that is not, as you can see above, what the Canon says. Moreover, read in the way that our Bishops our currently reading the first part of the definition, then even if the second part were to read as just stated, it (the second part) would be wholly superfluous, because all cases of joining another church would be subsumed under the first part. So as the liberals have thus far read the Canon, they either have to ignore the second part of the definition, or proceed with their illogic while they wreck their Church and the larger Communion of which it used to be a part.

As a little thought exercise, imagine the following dialogue between Socrates and Bishop Stacy Sauls, who is trying to defend the House of Bishop's position on the depositions as he has done in the past:

Socrates: So, tell me Bishop Sauls, does a member of your clergy abandon the communion of The Episcopal Church if he leaves you to join the Catholic Church?

Bishop Sauls: Yes. The Episcopal Church is not in communion with the Catholic Church, and the second part of the definition makes it an act of abandonment to join such a church.

Socrates: Then I take it that it would not be an act of abandonment for a member of your clergy to join a church that is in communion with The Episcopal Church?

Bishop Sauls: That act would not violate the second part of the definition, it is true, but it would violate the first part, because it would involve a renouncing of the discipline of this Church.

Socrates: But in each case it is true, is it not, that the clergy in question has joined a Church that is other than the Episcopal Church?

Bishop Sauls: That is true, yes.

Socrates: And in joining another Church, the clergy in question has thereby renounced the discipline, as you call it, of the Episcopal Church?

Bishop Sauls: That is also true, yes.

Socrates: Then I am afraid do not see the purpose of the second part of the definition, since both cases of abandonment seem to be covered by your interpretation of the first part.

Bishop Sauls: Oh, we added that second part to take care of the case of Bishop Ives of North Carolina, who left us in 1853 to join the Roman Catholic Church.

Socrates: But if that language was added specifically to address the case of Bishop Ives, as I understand it, then it must have been because it was felt that the language of the first part did not cover the situation?

Bishop Sauls: I imagine so, yes.

Socrates: We are making some progress, I believe. So if the drafters of the Canon in 1853 felt they needed language to cover the joining of another Church, not in communion with The Episcopal Church, then surely they did not think that the language of the first part covered the case of joining any other Church at all, isn't that right?

Bishop Sauls: (Puzzled) How's that again?

Socrates: Well, put yourself in the place of those who proposed the Canon in 1853. They have some language which makes it an act of abandonment to renounce openly "the Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of this Church," did they not?

Bishop Sauls: Yes, they did.

Socrates: And they had before them, did they not, the case of Bishop Ives, who had just left the Episcopal Church to join the Roman Catholic Church?

Bishop Sauls: That is also true.

Socrates: But they were not satisfied, were they, with just the first part of the definition, and so added the language of the second part specifically to cover the case of Bishop Ives?

Bishop Sauls: Given the reasons for adopting the Canon in 1853, that is so, yes.

Socrates: Then do you not see that the drafters did not think it was a renunciation of the "Doctrine, Discipline and Worship" of this Church to join another Church, and so felt they had to add language to cover that event? Otherwise, they simply could have retained the first part of the language, by itself, as sufficient?

Bishop Sauls: I see that now, yes.

Socrates: But in adding the extra language, the drafters specifically made it part of the definition of abandonment to join a Church that was not in communion with the Episcopal Church, did they not?

Bishop Sauls: They did, yes.

Socrates: So would you not agree with me that since they added those specific words, they must not have believed it to be an act of abandonment to join another Church that was in communion with the Episcopal Church?

Bishop Sauls: Stated that way, I would have to agree with you, yes.

Socrates: And the language of these two parts of the definition remains pretty much the same as it was in 1853, does it not?

Bishop Sauls: That is true, yes. In 1904, the words "Doctrine, Discipline and Worship" were changed to read as they do now, "Doctrine, Discipline or Worship." They did that to take care of the case of a clergyman who successfully defeated a charge of abandonment by arguing that while he may have renounced the Church's "doctrine and discipline", he had never abandoned its "worship" when he joined the Reformed Episcopal Church.

Socrates: But in making that one-word change, they still left in the second part of the definition as it had always been, didn't they?

Bishop Sauls: Yes, they did.

Socrates: And by leaving it in, they must have intended for it still to carry some meaning, isn't that correct?

Bishop Sauls: They must have, yes.

Socrates: So do you agree that to read the change made in 1904 to the first part as depriving the second part of all meaning would violate the intent of those drafters?

Bishop Sauls: That would be true, yes.

Socrates: All right, then. Let me see what we have agreed upon. We have agreed that the second part of the definition must still be read as meaning what it says---that it is an act of abandonment to leave the Episcopal Church for another church that is not in communion with it. Then it cannot be an act of abandonment to leave the Episcopal Church for another church that is in communion with it. Therefore, the act of joining another church that is in communion with the Episcopal Church cannot be considered an "open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship" of the Episcopal Church. Do you see that now?

Bishop Sauls: I do, but you're still wrong.

Socrates: How am I wrong---pray, tell me?

Bishop Sauls: Because we voted to depose them under the Canon, and our Chancellor advised us that we could.

Socrates: Then he must be a wiser man than I---you should certainly follow him, if that is the case.

Bishop Sauls: Thank you, Socrates---we will do that.

My concluding words to Bishop Sauls and all those others in the House who listen to the Presiding Bishop's Chancellor:

This is a man being paid upwards of $500 per hour, while his firm is raking in millions from your Church from the consequences of the actions he has advised you to take. For you to ignore all reason and logic just to follow his advice without question is not just a complete abandonment of your temporal and fiduciary responsibilities on behalf of the dioceses you represent. It is first and foremost a dereliction of your spiritual calling---placing it in the service of a destructive, rather than a redemptive, force.

If my words cannot reach you, then listen to those of the prophet Haggai:

1:5 Here then is what the Lord who rules over all says: ‘Think carefully about what you are doing. 1:6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but are never filled. You drink, but are still thirsty. You put on clothes, but are not warm. Those who earn wages end up with holes in their money bags.’”

. . .

1:9 ‘You expected a large harvest, but instead there was little, and when you brought it home it disappeared right away. Why?’ asks the Lord who rules over all. ‘Because my temple remains in ruins, thanks to each of you favoring his own house!

California Supreme Court to Consider Constitutionality of Proposition 8

News has recently broken of the order filed today by the California Supreme Court agreeing to hear arguments directly on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which was passed by California voters on November 4. The text of the order is here.

The order is significant for several reasons. First, the Supreme Court has agreed to accelerate the decision process. It has ordered all the cases filed challenging the ballot measure to be consolidated in one proceeding before it, and it has provided for an expedited briefing process. (The related story in the Sacramento Bee says that a court spokesman estimates oral arguments will take place in March 2009.)

Second, the order is significant because the Court denied the petition to prevent Prop. 8 from taking effect immediately---so it will remain in effect (and prevent further same-sex marriages) for a while, at least. (There was one dissenter from this denial---Justice Moreno, who would have voted for an immediate stay. The other six Justices disagreed---the three dissenters from the original decision, Justices Baxter, Corrigan and Chin, would naturally do so, while the others---Chief Justice George, and Justices Kennard and Werdegar---perhaps have an eye to the next time they are on the ballot for re-election.)

Third, the order is significant because it asks the parties to address these three questions in their briefs:

(1) Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution?

(2) Does Proposition 8 violate the separation-of-powers doctrine under the California Constitution?

(3) If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?

The second of the three questions is rather telling---it asks, in effect, whether the enactment of a Constitutional initiative interferes with the powers of the judicial branch. In other words, do they want to decide that only the Court gets to say what can be in the Constitution? (This really baffles me, since the power of the initiative is enshrined in the Constitution. Moreover, the distinction they have already drawn in their earlier decisions between an "amendment" and a "revision" would seem already to have safeguarded the separation of powers.)

Fourth, what is significant is what the Court does not ask to be addressed: its order says nothing about taking away the "rights" (actually, privileges) of a minority group, or invalidating the Proposition based on the fact that it supposedly "discriminates."

All in all, this is a unique order in several ways. Justice Kennard would grant the petitions only to the extent they request consideration of the third question above, dealing only with the effect of the Proposition on the marriages that occurred before its effective date. Does that mean she has had a change of heart, and now does not feel that she can overturn the vote of the majority?

Time will tell.

[UPDATE 11/20/2008: Be sure to read this quick overview of the petitioners' faulty legal arguments from John Hinderaker at the PowerLine blog.]

Bishop Wantland Knows His Canons

The Diocese of Ft. Worth having voted last weekend to leave The Episcopal Church to affiliate with the Province of the Southern Cone, there follows on the heels of this action the news that one of its assisting bishops, the Rt. Rev. William J. Wantland, the former diocesan of Eau Claire, has sent a letter to the Presiding Bishop asking that he be allowed to assume the status of a honorary member of the House of Bishops in The Episcopal Church.

Bishop Wantland is an expert in canon law, and in this shrewd move he demonstrates again that expertise. For it perfectly throws back on the Presiding Bishop and her coterie the hypocrisy of their bogus "depositions" of Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan---and soon probably of Bishop Iker as well---for allegedly "abandoning the communion of this Church."

At the Presiding Bishop's request, the House consented to "depose" Bishop Cox for performing episcopal acts for another province of the Anglican Communion; to "depose" Bishop Schofield for leading his diocese out of TEC for another province of the Anglican Communion; and to "depose" Bishop Duncan for so much as even thinking about and planning to have his diocese leave TEC for another province in the Anglican Communion. Now Bishop Iker's diocese, the Diocese of Ft. Worth, has also voted to leave, and even though he is no longer subject to TEC's jurisdiction, no doubt the Title IV Review Committee will soon dutifully lay charges before the Presiding Bishop so that she can first inhibit him, and then have him "deposed" at the next meeting of the House of Bishops.

As a bishop assisting in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, Bishop Wantland wants to stay with his diocese even though it has left the Episcopal Church. So he has invoked a little-known provision in the General Rules of the House of Bishops, which reads as follows (part of Rule XXIV):

. . . any Bishop of this Church who removed from the jurisdiction of this Church to the jurisdiction of a Church in the Anglican Communion may be continued in relationship to this House as an honorary member. Thirty days prior to each stated or called meeting of the House such honorary members shall give written notice of their intention to be present to the Presiding Officer of this House. Seat and voice shall then be accorded such honorary members, upon the nomination to the House by the Presiding Officer. No vote shall be accorded the honorary member.

Fits the situation at hand perfectly, does it not? By the actions of his diocese, Bishop Wantland has been "removed from the jurisdiction of this Church to the jurisdiction of a Church [the Province of the Southern Cone] in the Anglican Communion." This Rule lets him ask to remain affiliated with the House of Bishops as an honorary member, with seat and voice but no vote. (There will be be taken up for second reading at GC2009 next June a proposed Constitutional amendment [Res. A020 at GC2006] to confine the right to vote in the House just "to all bishops with jurisdiction, Bishops Coadjutor, Bishops Suffragan, Assistant Bishops and every bishop holding an office created by General Convention." This amendment, when passed, will deprive all "resigned" [i.e., retired] Bishops of their present right to vote.)

Thus it will be most interesting to see how the Presiding Bishop treats his request. I do not mean to ask what will happen if Bishop Wantland gives the required notice that he plans to attend the next meeting of the House, because the Rule states that no action on the request is required unless and until he actually shows up for the meeting in question. (Should he do so, the Rule provides only that the Presiding Officer of the House at the meeting "nominate" him for honorary membership; it is unclear whether a vote on the nomination would be taken.) No, what I see taking place is something more important: by sending the letter and announcing his desire to assume the status of an honorary member, Bishop Wantland has cut the procedural legs out from any move to depose him as a bishop for "abandonment of communion".

Think about it: the Rule clearly makes provision for a member of the House of Bishops to change his status, upon his having "removed from the jurisdiction of this Church to the jurisdiction of a Church in the Anglican Communion", from that of a regular to an honorary member. No resignation is required, since the bishop in question is still acting as a bishop of his diocese---just in another Church in the Anglican Communion. Nor is a legal deposition of the bishop so removed possible, since he is no longer subject to "the jurisdiction of this Church."

The House has clearly made provision for just such an event, by recognizing that the bishop in question, while no longer eligible to be a member, and not subject either to deposition or mandatory resignation, might desire to continue his affiliation with his former colleagues. And for that purpose it created the category of honorary membership. Having made express provision for just such an occurrence, it would be arbitrary and capricious to deny the benefit of the Rule to one of its own members. That is why I say it will be very interesting "to see how the Presiding Bishop treats his request."

If she purports to entertain charges of "abandonment", and to inhibit him preparatory to asking the House to consent to his deposition, he can with perfect aplomb respond: "I haven't abandoned any communion---I want to remain affiliated with the House, and to that end, I am following the canons and the Rules of the House to the letter. I ask that you do so as well."

Brilliant move, Bishop Wantland! The ball is now in the Presiding Bishop's court. Does anyone want to bet what she will do with it?

Hypocrisy? You Call That Hypocrisy??

The liberal blogs out there (check the links in my "AngliCannon to the Left" sidebar) are falling all over themselves about the supposed hypocrisy of the Dioceses of Ft. Worth and Quincy in leaving The Episcopal Church, when some years ago each of them sued a parish that left them.

This just goes to show the weakness of liberals---since they lack any ability to use logic, they simply cannot tell what is true hypocrisy from what is not. I know this will be a waste of time, but for the record, I will spell it out for them:

1. A diocese that leaves a church is not the same as a parish that leaves a diocese. There is nothing in TEC's Constitution or Canons that says a Diocese may not leave TEC, but there are provisions in all Diocesan canons that govern the obligations of a parish with respect to the diocese.

2. Let's take the example of the Diocese of Ft. Worth. The first two paragraphs of Article 14 of its Constitution, entitled "Title to Church Property," have read as follows since 1989 (I have added the bold for emphasis):

The title to all real estate acquired for the use of the Church in this Diocese, including the real property of all Parishes and Missions, as well as Diocesan Institutions, shall be held subject to control of the Church in The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth acting by and through a corporation known as "Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth". All such property as well as all property hereafter acquired for the use of the Church and the Diocese, including Parishes and Missions, shall be vested in Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth shall hold real property acquired for the use of a particular Parish or Mission in trust for the use and benefit of such Parish or Mission. The income from such property shall belong to such Parish or Mission, which will be responsible for expenses attributable thereto. Such property may not be conveyed, leased or encumbered by Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth without the consent of the Rector, Wardens and Vestry of such Parish or Mission. Upon dissolution of such Parish or Mission, property held in trust for it shall revert to said Corporation for the use and benefit of the Diocese, as such.

(Canon 18 of the Diocesan Canons is to similar effect. Notice that this language is not inconsistent with the Dennis Canon, because that Canon, too, recognizes that parish property is held in trust for the diocese in which the parish is located. The Dennis Canon attempts to add another trust in favor of TEC itself---but we do not have to go there for purposes of my example: it was the Diocese of Ft. Worth, and not TEC, that sued the departing parish.)

3. Language in TEC's Constitution requiring each Diocese to make "an unqualified accession" to TEC's Constitution and Canons in order to join spells out a current condition for a diocese to be able to join TEC. It is not an ongoing requirement of membership---as I pointed out in this earlier post, several dioceses do not have any such language of accession in their Constitutions, yet no one questions their membership in TEC.

4. The language of Ft. Worth's Constitution, in contrast, requires the actual title of the parish property to be held in the name of the Diocesan Corporation. So in that case cited by the liberals, the diocese was simply going after property that was supposed to be in its own name. (I discussed the earlier case of the Diocese of Quincy in this post.)

5. If liberals were logical, they would see that this same logic would require the current Dioceses of Ft. Worth and Quincy to go after any parish that tried to leave the diocese by "staying" in TEC.

6. For in reality, there is currently only one diocese formerly affiliated with TEC in each of the geographical territories of Ft. Worth and Quincy, and there is no "diocese" that is currently so affiliated. (There cannot be one until TEC's General Convention gives its permission for one to be formed, and it doesn't meet for another eight months.)

7. Any parish thus "staying" in TEC has no diocese to join, unless a neighboring TEC diocese would agree to take it in.

8. It is to the great credit of the current leadership of the dioceses of Ft. Worth and Quincy that they are willing to allow this to happen, without filing any lawsuits to prevent it. As we know from what happened in San Joaquin, the putative "Episcopal diocese" was by no means as generous.

9. But liberals don't know how properly to use logic, so they babble on about the supposed "hypocrisy" of the dioceses in question.

10. Would you like proof, o ye of liberal bent, that you cannot recognize true hypocrisy when you see it? Fine: just show me more than one liberal blogger who admitted that what I called attention to in this post was hypocrisy. (One doesn't count, because Scott+ is the exception that proves the rule.)

Q. E. D.  I rest my case.

Celebrating the Election? Think Again

All right, after this post, I promise, I will have nothing further to say about the 2008 presidential election. (I will, of course, reserve the right to comment about the inanities of the future Administration as they are dutifully proposed and passed by our pandering representatives.) In response to the truly pitiful video that follows, you may, of course, maintain that the editors selected a particularly egregious sample of "Obama voters." Simple mathematics and logic, however, would show you that such cannot be the case.

For if there were, as reported, 66,882,230 ballots cast for Obama, then if you set out to find the twelve most ignorant voters, and managed to conduct four interviews per hour, 24 hours per day from the election until now, you would have interviewed only 96 voters each day for 13 days up to Nov. 17, or 1,248 voters total. So what are the odds that in 1,248 out of 66,882,230 voters, you just happened to hit upon the most illiterate twelve? Pretty infinitesimal, as you should see. (And it's pretty obvious from the background of the video that these interviews were all filmed on November 4, Election Day itself---so the odds just became even more infinitesimal.)

Now, then, having established the premise of this post, watch, and weep for your country, whose fate is dependent on the intellects of voters such as these, as drilled in the facts by our---oh, yes!---unbiased media:

See also this survey. We are now at the tipping point, I would submit, where we either stop turning elections into a popularity contest, or else prove the truth of Thomas Jefferson's warning some 200 years ago:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity. "

And to round out your post-election depression, here is a wonderful video from our friends at that inimitable source of political satire, The Onion:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are


(H/T: Powerline).

Understanding Rowan Williams for the First Time

Reports about the forthcoming Primates' Meeting, to be held in Alexandria, Egypt at the beginning of February 2009, mention that earlier the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Dr. Rowan Williams, had expressed hopes to make use of the same small-group, indaba-style discussions that he used at the Lambeth Conference in 2008. In his pastoral letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion following the conference, Dr. Williams stated:

. . . Many participants believed that the indaba method, while not designed to achieve final decisions, was such a necessary aspect of understanding what the questions might be that they expressed the desire to see the method used more widely – and to continue among themselves the conversations begun in Canterbury. This is an important steer for the meetings of the Primates and the ACC which will be taking place in the first half of next year, and I shall be seeking to identify the resources we shall need in order to take forward some of the proposals about our structures and methods.

This is not exactly an express or forthright declaration of intent, but then Dr. Williams is known for his highly oblique way of expressing himself. In any event, the Rev. George Conger reports that these plans have evoked "private scorn" and "public criticism": 

While the agenda and locale remain to be settled, the Bishop of Egypt, Dr Mouneer Anis, said he was proud to be able to host the conference. However, suggestions by the Archbishop of Canterbury that he would use the Indaba process to manage the Primates’ Meeting has prompted private scorn from the primates contacted by CEN, and public criticism from evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics unhappy with the ‘manipulation’ and management of the Indaba process at Lambeth.

Fr Conger goes on to give details of how some bishops experienced directly a manipulation of the indaba process; some (e.g., Bishop Jack Iker of Ft. Worth) had difficulty getting their remarks included in the daily summaries, while others witnessed pre-scripted remarks, delivered from a sheet of "talking points" prepared for American bishops in advance, encountered no such difficulty.

The indaba groups at Lambeth each had forty bishops, and the number of all Primates who will be attending the meeting in Alexandria is less than that. So what Dr. Williams may have in mind is breaking the meeting down into much smaller groups. Whatever the official agenda may be (it is not yet announced), it is certain that the topics of discussion will include recent statements by several bishops in the United States and Canada that their dioceses are proceeding with developing liturgies for the blessing of same-sex unions, contrary to the declared wishes of the Windsor Continuation Group at Lambeth. The Primates may also hear complaints from TEC about "border crossing" and interference from the Province of the Southern Cone, as well as demands in return that some form of discipline be meted out to TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada for their failures to follow the recommendations of the Windsor Report. And certainly the Primates will discuss the schedule for the reception and eventual adoption of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

For years now, there have been complaints from the conservative side that Rowan Williams is "spineless" or "wishy-washy," and that he is "indecisive" and "fails to exercise leadership" with regard to the issues that are breaking apart the Anglican Communion. There have also been complaints from the liberals that Dr. Williams abandoned, once he became Archbishop, the cause of gays and lesbians in the Church. He has managed to please almost no one with his conduct of Communion affairs, and as a result it appears to be breaking up in front of our eyes.

I have long felt that something was missing in these commonly expressed views of Rowan Williams. In the teaching sessions he gave leading up to Lambeth, he showed himself as a superb pastor, telling the assembled bishops exactly what they needed to hear in order to put aside the divisions that separated them. We already know that he is an equally superb theologian and spiritual writer. And the recent accounts of his courageous behavior at Ground Zero in New York on September 11, 2001 and following have only added more complexity to the picture: the man is no coward, and exhibited all the traits of spiritual leadership when the moment called for them.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to come across a little-known piece written by the Rev. Dr. Giles Fraser, the Vicar of St. Mary's in Putney, a prolific writer and commentator on Church affairs, and a stalwart of the Church's liberal wing. The piece appears as a foreword to a book by Andrew Shanks about the Jewish-born philosopher Gillian Rose, who literally converted on her deathbed to the Church of England, just before cancer conquered her at the age of 47. The book is titled Against Innocence - Gillian Rose's Reception and Gift of Faith, and appeared earlier this year. Dr. Fraser explains how he and the author had originally set out to write the book jointly, but had come to a parting of the ways over the treatment to be given to Gillian Rose's philosophy. In the course of his remarks he describes how Ms. Rose's philosophy, and Andrew Shanks's treatment of it, also explain how Rowan Williams has managed the Anglican Communion. (According to Shanks, Williams "knew [Rose] well and was intellectually close to her"; he cites an article on her philosophy that Williams wrote in 1995.) Here is what Dr. Fraser has to say:

What follows [in this book] is a spirited defense of what one might call the theology of the peace negotiator or mediator. Simply put, the mediator pursues a theology that refuses to accept that a disagreement can ever reach a point where there is no benefit to be gained from further conversation. . . .  

Sound familiar? Dr. Fraser, who teaches philosophy himself, continues:

. . . Put a different way, it is a refusal to accept that two seemingly irreconcilable positions are indeed irreconcilable. The mediator is the supreme pragmatist, employing all the philosophical strategies up his or her sleeve to keep opponents round the table, to keep them talking.

The philosophical substructure of this theology of mediatory conversation is Hegelian; indeed, I would want to call it dialectical---though the three thinkers that matter most in this book, Shanks, Rose and Rowan Williams (all Hegelians of sorts), refuse to equate the drivers of Hegel's thought with the crab-like progress of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Instead, Williams perfectly describes the Hegelianism of the mediating peace negotiator when he writes: 'Reflection requires that the plain opposition of positive and negative be left behind. Thinking is not content with the abstraction of mutual exclusivities, but struggles to conceive of a structured wholeness nuanced enough to contain what appeared to be contradictories.'

As it turns out, this 'struggle to conceive of a structural wholeness nuanced enough to contain what appeared to be contradictories' is a pretty accurate summary of the Archbishop's strategy in dealing with the warring parties of contemporary Anglicanism. Indeed, rarely has there been a more convinced exponent of the theology of the peace negotiator than Rowan Williams. . . . [W]hat Andrew Shanks has produced is a brilliant and subtle apologia for the Archbishop of Canterbury's strategy in dealing with the culture wars in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality.

Dr. Fraser was not at Lambeth this summer, and he wrote his foreword well before that Conference took place. But he foretells precisely the frustration engendered there by the (indaba-inspired) processes of the peace negotiator:

Of course, there are various strategies for peace negotiations, some more effective than others. Much of the time, particularly in the Church, it simply means a process whereby people with competing visions are shut away in a room with a flipchart and a facilitator. Mostly, this doesn't produce any significant meeting of minds. Rather, it produces a lot of angry and frustrated Christians who feel they have wasted their time in a directionless quagmire of well-meaning but pointless conversation. . . .

It is the more remarkable, therefore, that Dr. Fraser indicates that Dr. Williams understands well that there is more to the process than just the ensuing frustration with it:

. . . In contrast, the sort of peace negotiation suggested by Rose and Shanks has a definite strategy: it attempts to dismantle our desire for innocence. [My note: remember that the title of Shanks's book is Against Innocence.] For what is recognized by the true mediator is that innocence---or the 'longing to be utterly sure of our rightness', as Williams puts it---is exactly the motivation that leads people to reject compromise and continue with the theological fisticuffs. Thus the target for much of the theology in this book is the stubborn desire for the sort of moral purity that refuses negotiation. For the mediator it is better to inhabit the uncomfortable world of compromise, even if this suggests the possibility of betraying one's deepest convictions. Better that than the cheap innocence premised upon the refusal to entertain negotiation, conversation, or compromise.

I have added the above italics, because by the time I got to those words, it was as though scale had fallen from my eyes, and they were wide open. The inner mind of Rowan Williams was being explained to me in a way that nothing else I had ever read about him had done. Dr. Fraser clinched it for me with his next paragraph, where I have again added the emphases:

To put it at its starkest: peace is better than truth. Of course, this is not a description that advocates of this position would recognize. In typically Hegelian fashion, they reject the suggestion that peace and truth stand in opposition to one another. This is why, when the Archbishop is charged with sacrificing truth for unity, as he often is, his comeback has consistently been that unity is a means by which truth is made visible, that we come to truth through the process of uniting conversation. In other words the 'struggle to conceive of a structural wholeness nuanced enough to contain what appeared to be contradictories' applies even to the apparent antithesis of truth and peace.

Next, Dr. Fraser makes it all very personal. He recounts his own anger and disappointment with Rowan Williams in the case of Jeffrey John, the gay priest who was rejected as the Bishop of Reading. Because Williams had abstained from the vote for Resolution 1.10 at Lambeth, and had promised, in an open letter to gay Christians written afterward, to "work for [their] full inclusion in the life of the Church", Dr. Fraser and all the other supporters of the cause felt a huge betrayal when, as Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Williams prevailed upon the Rev. John to refuse the appointment. (A complete history, documented with links, of Dr. Williams' positions on gays in the Church may be downloaded here.)  And then Dr. Fraser explains (again, I have added the emphasis):

And it is here, just as I have worked myself up into a lather of righteous indignation, that the 'against innocence' theology gets to work. For the mediator offers the suggestion that the indignation I have expressed is really a form of self-righteousness---more about me than it is about anything else. Moreover, it protects my own moral innocence by blinkering me to the full consequences of my position. The innocence of the angry activist is a refusal to accept that even the noblest cause can have unwanted and deeply unfortunate consequences. The mediator has a point: things are as they are. It is some of the poorest people in the world who will suffer most from the collapse of the Anglican Communion. Which is why Rowan Williams is prepared to bracket out his own progressive instincts on human sexuality---what I earlier referred to as a betrayal. From Shanks's perspective, it is not at all a betrayal, but something generous and self-sacrificial. The Archbishop has given up a false show of innocence in order to negotiate peace. On this reading, his handling of the gay crisis is a heroic act of the supreme mediator prepared fully to face the tragic reality of division. In contrast, the activist is playing 'let's pretend', refusing to accept that others suffer for his/her self-righteousness, and unwilling to give up reputation in order to seek some sort of settlement. It's a pretty hefty charge.

Yes, it is a hefty charge. And it is a valuable insight into what motivates Rowan Williams to keep the conversations and dialogues going, never to declare an end, and never to accept any ultimatums from whatever direction. In the next paragraph, Dr. Fraser returns to a summary of the philosophy of Gillian Rose, but by now you should understand that it is also the philosophy and viewpoint of Rowan Williams:

Rose's work is an encouragement to pay attention to the philosophical condition of human fallenness. Human beings are haunted by complexity, compromised by mixed motives, and debased by threads of complicity with cruelty and untruthfulness. We constantly seek to represent ourselves with various fictions of our own innocence---the innocence of the activist, of the silent or prayerful, of the victim---thus failing to recognize that we all own shares in the ways of the world. This isn't so much a counsel of despair: rather, it's a fearlessly honest description of what it takes to love our neighbor.

(Emphasis again my own.) Dr. Fraser is almost finished. But he adds one more insight, which is relevant to what is happening today in regard to the proposal for an Anglican Covenant---which Dr. Williams strongly supports:

There is one further thing that Rowan Williams's approach to peace negotiation owes to Rose's general philosophy and that is its insistence on the importance of law in the formation of public ethics. For Rose, the significance of law grows out of an attack upon postmodernity which, she argues, represents an abandonment of the public sphere. It's a fascinating line of thought. The Holocaust so traumatized western culture---and especially and obviously the work of Jewish intellectuals who were prominent in the creation of postmodern ethics---that ethicists of the mid-part of the twentieth century attempted, almost subconsciously, to construct an ethics without any reference whatsoever to the actual necessity for violence or force. It was an understandable reaction to the violence of the death camps and, in its way, another manifestation of the desire for innocence. . . .

Rose notes that this refusal of practical ethics by Jewish thinkers is especially ironic given the centrality of law in Jewish religious thought. For, according to Rose, it is to the ethics of law that we must look first in order to see our way past the unhelpful innocence of the postmodern ethical cul-de-sac. It is through the application of just law that ethics is made substantial and real. . . .

This, I suspect, is one of the intellectual tributaries that has led Rowan Williams to place so much emphasis on covenant as the answer to the problems of the Communion. Good law suffers a safe space for different view points to learn from each other. As Williams once put it in a lecture to the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge: 'Covenant promises one world, not a totalising conformity enforced by central power, but a mutual recognition of the debt of honor and love, and a search for ways in which the good of each and the good of all may coincide.'

I have to thank Dr. Fraser for a very useful key with which to unlock some of the enigma which Rowan Williams has heretofore presented to me: the words "peace negotiator" will now be always associated in my mind with what he says and does---and does not do. For Dr. Williams, there is nothing unbalanced about a Church in which two opposite sides are constantly struggling to have their views prevail. Just as no one side is entirely in the right, so no one side is ever entirely in the wrong. In his belief, it is only through constant communication and dialogue that unity can be achieved---a unity which neither side today may be able to conceive or envision what it will be like when they eventually get there. To cease the discussion, to walk away from the table, would be to allow one's moral innocence to take priority over our Lord's commandment "to love one another as you have loved me."

I am grateful as well for the insights which Dr. Fraser has brought to the current situation in the Anglican Communion. (I wish only that he had been able to publish his foreword as a separate article in order to give it wider circulation.) But as a canon lawyer, I cannot help but emphasize his (and Gillian Rose's) assertion that "Good law suffers a safe space for different viewpoints to learn from each other." And just what makes for "good law"? Assuming an underlying democratic process, it can only be these two things: first, the law that we have is scrupulously observed, by all who are subject to it at all times; and second, that changes to the law that we have are made only in accordance with the procedures specified by the law itself.

Just as the life of the Church is not advanced by a self-righteous insistence on demands needed to protect one's own moral innocence, so the life of the Church is not advanced by the violation of its canons, or by bringing the strategies and tactics of civil disobedience into its deliberations. This is a church, and not a state. In the state, the people are sovereign, but in the church it is God who is sovereign. There have never been, and never can be, any "civil rights" that one can demand of God. 

The proposed Anglican Covenant, if adopted in accordance with the procedures of the Anglican Communion, will thereby become and form the heart of that "good law which suffers a safe space for different viewpoints to learn from each other." Dioceses which leave one province for another, as the Diocese of Fort Worth did today, have not left the Anglican Communion. They will still have a voice and a vote in the process of adopting the Covenant.

The forthcoming formation of a new North American province, however, introduces a note of uncertainty into the picture. That province, when formed, will not automatically be part of the Anglican Communion. The question will present itself, by the time of the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in May 2009, whether---and if so, how---the dioceses who are in that province may sign onto the Covenant. If it is ruled that provinces are simply administrative units into which dioceses are organized, and that it is the dioceses that constitute the Anglican Communion, then it will not matter whether the Constitution of the ACC has been amended by then to recognize the new North American province. Each diocese can then decide on its own whether or not to stay in the Anglican Communion as defined by the Covenant.

Here is what the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, who is a member of the Covenant Design Group, had to say earlier on the question of allowing dioceses to sign even if their province did not:

This question is an important one that requires further consideration and response. That a diocese (and even a parish) might not agree with its province's decision regarding the Covenant is clearly a situation that must be envisioned as likely in certain circumstances; and it is one that a covenantal communion within an episcopally-ordered set of churches like Anglicanism must resolve coherently. In principle, such a diocese will and must be recognized as being as a full part of the Anglican Communion; but how that can and will be played out in terms of local polity is still undefined and demands the attention of all Anglican churches.

It remains to be seen what position the General Convention of The Episcopal Church will adopt towards the Covenant when it meets at Anaheim next July. In her typical autocratic fashion, the current Presiding Bishop has announced in advance that she is opposed to any consideration of the Covenant at General Convention. Fortunately, however, her powers are not yet such that she alone can prevent a resolution from reaching the floor.

Thus it will be very interesting to watch what may literally be the Armageddon of The Episcopal Church next July. The opposition to the Covenant by the leadership at 815 can only stem from a belief that its adoption will interfere in some way with the program of social justice to which they have dedicated themselves. If individual dioceses in The Episcopal Church are permitted to sign onto the Covenant separately, that result will spell the end of the current hegemony represented by the three digits 815. So they will be unalterably opposed to allowing such a procedure within the Episcopal Church.

But 815 does not control the ACC, although it may command considerable support there. It is conceivable that, over concerted opposition, the ACC will propose that the Covenant be adopted by the vote of individual dioceses. If it does that in May, watch for a proposal at General Convention in July to make it uncanonical in some fashion for individual dioceses within The Episcopal Church so to act.

This will lead to the Armageddon of which I spoke. Individual dioceses will be forced to choose between remaining in the Anglican Communion, or remaining in The Episcopal Church. It may well be that a number of dioceses will choose the former, and the Episcopal Church will have more lawsuits on its hands. Those dioceses who have already left will have no problem, whether the new American province has been recognized or not.

But if the will of 815 prevails and the vote on the Covenant is required by provinces, then Armageddon will be postponed for at least three more years, and those dioceses that left will have to wait until their new province is recognized. If TEC votes down the Covenant at General Convention 2012, the door will then be open for the new American province to take its place in the Anglican Communion.

Either way, we are in for a rough ride. In watching how the Archbishop of Canterbury manages the situation, and will probably choose to have a Communion with (as he has already indicated) several "tiers" of membership rather than no Communion at all, it is very helpful to have the understanding of him which Giles Fraser so thoughtfully has provided.     

   

A Question for the Ages (Especially This One)

The information as to just who is getting how much in the ongoing bailout is now public. These were the first Nine in Line, as of 10/29:

1. Bank of America ($15 billion)

2. Bank of New York Mellon Corp. ($3 billion)

3. Citigroup ($25 billion)

4. Goldman Sachs ($10 billion)

5. J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. ($25 billion)

6. Morgan Stanley ($10 billion)

7. State Street Corporation ($2 billion)

8. Wells Fargo ($25 billion)

9. Merrill Lynch ($10 billion)

And this is just from the Treasury. (You can follow its money outlays here, as they are updated.)

Meanwhile, the Fed and the Treasury are having to pool resources in order to bail out insurance giant AIG. You can read about the gruesome details (to date) here---$150 billion and climbing.

But these are just drops in the bucket. Among them, the Fed, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (which pays off depositors in failed banks) have committed to date five trillion dollars (that's 5 followed by twelve zeroes, or in figures, $5,000,000,000,000.00) of our (present and future) taxpayers' money to these ludicrous bailouts.  Well, guess what: that amount is more than a third of our current Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and almost equal to the hugely bloated share that all government (federal, state and local) now contributes to the GDP by spending the taxes it collects from us and the proceeds from selling bonds. (The share of all government spending as a percentage of GDP has gone from 12% before 1930 to 43% today). It is also equal to about half of the current debt ceiling of $10.6 trillion---what is so quaintly called the "national debt". So what these figures mean is that, thanks to all the bailouts to which just the Federal Government has committed us, the United States has to raise, on top of what it now spends, a sum equal again to what all the governments in the country raise and spend in a year, and half again as much as it already owes. 

[UPDATE 11/24/2008: Well, here we are just ten days down the road since I posted the above news, and the total outstanding pledges have jumped by fifty percent again, to a new cumulative total of $7.4 TRILLION DOLLARS---fully one-half of the entire output of this country over the past full year. (And that was during the time of a boom! Watch what happens as GDP sinks in the recession-to-depression phenomenon that is occurring in front of our eyes as I write. Your politicians, and the bureaucrats who prop them up, have lost their collective minds!]

Let me put this into an individual perspective. If we subtract out what the government receives from social security and retirement contributions, its total revenues for fiscal 2007 were about $1.86 trillion. It's as though you, with an income of just $18,600 per year, and who had already tricked the banks into lending you a total of $106,000, took on a further loan for $50,000, so that you now owed more than eight times your annual income. Do you think any individual would actually be able to do that without committing massive fraud? But this is the mentality that overtakes you when you get elected to Congress---it's not your money, so you spend it like a drunken sailor in exchange for promises to get re-elected. (In fact, as Martial Artist justly points out in the comments below, at least the hypothetical "drunken sailor" is spending his own money, and not other people's. So even a drunken sailor is better than the average tax-and-spend, earmarking member of Congress.)

And now the Democrats are talking about still more bailouts, to the auto industry, after Obama takes office! This proves H. L. Mencken's great witticism that "Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods." The auction was held, and Obama outbid McCain in his promises to spend your money (as soon as he gets the power to steal it).

All this debt is scheduled to be passed on to later generations, to our children and to their children. We have literally mortgaged their future, and it were well to recall the etymology of the word "mortgage": 

The great jurist Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1552 to 1634, has explained why the term mortgage comes from the Old French words mort, “dead,” and gage, “pledge.” It seemed to him that it had to do with the doubtfulness of whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt. If the mortgagor does not, then the land pledged to the mortgagee as security for the debt “is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the [mortgagee].”

So if our children cannot pay back the money that we borrowed and spent on things like bailouts, the future will indeed be dead to them. When will the madness stop?

Long ago, in another era, we had a leader of principle, who foresaw the slippery slope down which we are now sliding ever faster, and who did what he could to prevent it. There had been a severe drought in western Texas in 1887, and Congress voted to appropriate the sum of $10,000 (equivalent to about $600,000 today---a trifling amount for government) to help farmers purchase seed. But President Grover Cleveland, that man of principle, vetoed the bill and sent it back to Congress with these words (I have added the emphasis):

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution; and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadily resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.

The veto message went on to suggest that “the friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied on to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune,” and pointed out that “individual aid has to some extent already been extended to the sufferers mentioned in this bill.” Further, President Cleveland reminded Congress that they already had appropriated earlier that year the sum of $100,000 to purchase seed for each Congressman to distribute as he saw fit in his home district. (Yes, the practice of spending other people's money to curry favor for re-election has been with us since the government began---in 1789 the politicians bought voters rum, and in 1887 they passed out free seed.)  So he said that if Congress really wanted to engage in an act of charity, they might pool their individual allotments and deliver what was required to the farmers of West Texas. 

(The full text of the veto message is found in Vol. XVIII, Pt. 2 (49th Cong., 2d session [1887]), at p. 1875.) Grover Cleveland's wisdom can be expressed in the form of a rhetorical question, as follows:

If the Government supports the people, then who will support the Government?

I guess we're about to see.

Somewhere There's a Saying . . .

Readers of this site will know from this post that I was not a fan of either of the two major parties' candidates. Nor am I in the business of telling people "I told you so." But there is some old saying in the back of my mind that I think, if only I could remember it, would be very appropriate here, in light of the excerpt that I give below from what Mark Penn writes at the Politico blog. What was that saying?---something about "a fool and his money . . . ." I'm sure someone out there will remember it, after reading this (bold added for emphasis):

Barack Obama promised he would lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans and presumably raise them for the 5 percent who benefited most under President Bush’s tax policies. But, remarkably, the most affluent 5 percent supported Obama and that was perhaps the key to his victory last week.

This group — and the rise of a new elite class of voters — is at the heart of the fast-paced changes in demographics affecting the political, sociological and economic landscape of the country. While there has been some inflation over the past 12 years, the exit poll demographics show that the fastest growing group of voters in America has been those making over $100,000 a year in income. . . . Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.

 

. . .

But 69 percent of all Americans in polls I conducted in recent years now also call themselves “professionals,” a new class transcending the old class labels or working or middle class or the wealthy. They have white-collar jobs requiring higher education and are earning more than ever before. Because of layoffs and business scandals of recent years, they have become increasingly embittered toward the corporate cultures that would have otherwise been their natural home base.

Unlike the small-businessman who is typically anti-government, these professionals come out of the era of the growth of global corporations believing more than ever before in government intervention, teamwork and collective action. They are the voters who favored the bailout, while the left and the right saw it as a betrayal of their fundamental principles.

These higher educated voters generally believe more in science than religion, in the interconnectedness of the world, and in pragmatism over ideology. They see us all living in a new world and are watching their kids enter it taking new economy kinds of jobs in places increasingly far away from home.

This group is at the core of voters receiving more of their information online and through cable TV in their offices all day long. As they leave many of the problems of working class life behind, this new class is easily captivated by the Sunday shows. What appears on the front pages has more impact on shaping their views than what they experience in their everyday life.

In the end when it comes to a congressional vote, will they support higher taxes if they have to pay them? That is a big question that remains to be seen – they could quickly fragment over the issue if it gets raised early in the Obama administration. . . .

Good luck to those newly affluent and "higher educated" voters; I think they are going to need it. Now if I could only remember that saying . . . .

The Lead Offers an Unwitting Lesson for TEC

Over at The Lead, J.B. Chilton passes on a lesson drawn by Giles Fraser from the recent unseemly brawl that occurred between monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. (I've had to repair some hasty grammar typos, but I've left the spelling of the name of Pope Pius IX as is, in case the Rev. Fraser was having his little joke by Anglicizing it.) Anyway, here it is, warts and all:

There's a lesson in the news reports of [the] recent brawl [between] monks about who got to stand where . . . at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem[,] says Giles Fraser:

Pope Pious [sic] 9th was absolutely spot-on about how one defends the church. One defends it best by not defending it, by not being obsessed with it and instead by looking outward, looking towards the needs of the others.

Jesus said that only those who are prepared to loose [sic] their life will find it. The logic is counter intuitive. The more you give away the more you have. The more your focus in life is outside of yourself, the more your own soul will flourish. This is why the introverted piety of churchyness is, in the end, a complete betrayal of the message of the church - which is exactly what happened with those warring monks.

But surely also, there's a lesson here for a huge number of us. For many of us do spend a great deal of our time and energy, at work and at home, defending some pathetic little patch of turf which, in the great scheme of things, means precious little. If we're not careful we can easily find that we've invested our lives in battling for some shrinking space that is, ultimately, as inconsequential as the place of a monk in a procession.

How do we guard against becoming like this? The Christian answer is that that we find freedom from the ego's ever narrowing obsessions by placing our centre of interest outside of ourselves.

Yes, J.B., there is a lesson here. It's too bad that the Church which you support does not appear to be listening to it.

Blog Changes - Politics Can Be Fun!

It may be paradoxical, but now that the election is over, I have a sense that politics will become more central to our life than ever. This has never been just a religious blog, just as The Episcopal Church has recently been acting less and less like a church. If I could choose just one blog to emulate in its mix of religion and politics, it would be Cranmer.

I regularly follow a bunch of blogs that deal exclusively with politics. Now that the election strife is over, it seems to me that it might add to your enjoyment of this site if I link to some of them. So I've added a new section in the blogroll, called "Political Fodder" (to go with all the various cannon, of course).

Here's a sampling of just one of their recent posts---enjoy!

How the Media Frames the News

Eric Allie at CNSNews.

[UPDATE 11/11/2008: In order to reduce the time it takes to load this page (due to all the blogs linked), I am going to introduce a policy of eliminating from the rolls those blogs who have not posted for two weeks or more. It does not mean that their link will be permanently eliminated (only blogs which announce their termination, such as most recently The Continuum, will suffer that fate after two weeks---giving them a chance to repent). I continue to subscribe to the others, even when they do not post, and will add them again to the blogrolls as they update their blogs.] 

The Unvarnished Truth

This will not be a "popular" post---indeed, it may cost me some loyal readers. But curmudgeons are entitled to that moniker only to the extent they speak the truth. What follows is, I promise you, the unvarnished truth---with perhaps a curmudgeonly edge to it; for that, I hope, you will be generous in indulging my plainspokenness.

I shall speak from the heart, tempered by a life devoted to the law. I know many who are gay, I share communion with gays, and I greatly respect the intellects of those gays I have gotten to know on closer terms. But I cannot respect what the demand for gay "marriage" is doing to our society. A decent regard for my fellow humans who are struggling with the issue demands that I speak my piece; so be it:

1. The “right to marry” cannot be an individual right. It requires two people to marry. But what the law recognizes as “rights” are always the property of individuals. So at the very outset, there is a disconnect in the claim to a "right to marry."

2. Regarded from an individual point of view, you do not have a right to marry someone else without that person’s consent. So immediately, your so-called “right” is completely restricted and limited by everyone else’s right to refuse to marry you. What kind of “right” is that?

3. In a similar way, any individual can file papers to incorporate, and so can be said to have a “right” to incorporate---but the corporation will need at a minimum two officers and two directors to be recognized as a corporation. So one's “right” to incorporate is restricted and limited by the right of everyone else to refuse to serve as a director or officer of one's corporation.

4. All right, so let’s speak about a couple who wants to get married. Can they be said to have a "right to marry"?

5. Generally speaking, as noted above, rights belong to individuals. The reason is that if you have a right, then by definition another person has a duty that corresponds with that right, and duties are owed to individuals. If, for example, you can be said to have a "right" to vote (because you are over eighteen and a citizen), then each other citizen has a duty to allow you to exercise that right, and to see that it is not interfered with.

6. So if a couple could be said to have a “right” of some kind, then there would have to be a corresponding duty owed by each citizen to that couple as a couple. Now an individual is easily recognized, so other citizens have no trouble in telling when they are denying the rights of an individual. But what about a couple? How are you supposed to know when what you are dealing with is a couple owed a duty as such, and not just two friendly individuals? For this and similar reasons, the law does not generally recognize any “rights” that are held by couples as such, or duties owed to couples as such. Duties are owed to individuals, because individuals remain individuals until they die.

7. Moreover, what would such a “right”, if it could be possessed by a couple, amount to? It would be a right that would extinguish itself the moment the marriage ceremony was performed---that couple, once married, could no longer be said to have a “right” to marry. So what kind of “right” could it be that exists only for the purpose of being wiped out? (The individual’s right to vote, for instance, comes into being each time there is an election; and voting in one election does not deny you the right to vote in the next---to the contrary, it ensures it. But getting married would most certainly mean you no longer have a “right to marry” again until you were not married, i.e., either divorced, or widowed.)

8. The very fact that a divorcee or a widow has a “right to marry” that you do not have as long as you remain married shows us that what we are talking about is not a right at all, but a privilege. A privilege is something you have to meet the qualifications for: if you meet them, you are granted the privilege, if you don’t meet them, you have no right to the privilege.

9. A married person thus has no “right” to the privilege to marry, while a divorcee or widow may be said to meet the qualifications to marry, in being single---but to marry whom? (Even a divorcee has no “right” to the privilege of being married to her brother, for example. This is why it is so unhelpful to use the word “right” in connection with a privilege.)

10. Thus if you get accepted to Harvard, you have met its qualifications, and you receive the privilege of attending Harvard. You have no “right” to attend Harvard (but you have a right to apply to Harvard---even if you possess none of the qualifications for acceptance). Do you begin to see the difference? Rights, in some context, can be meaningless (e.g., the “right” to apply to Harvard even if you have an IQ of 40), but privileges are never meaningless; they confer a status that is defined by the law.

11. In the same way, if you pass the driver’s test in your State, you are granted the privilege of a driver’s license. To speak of a “right” to a driver’s license that is independent of race, sex, age or sexual orientation is a misnomer: you have a “right” only to take the driver’s test, and then only if you qualify by being a certain age, are not blind, are able to read English, etc. A driver’s license is thus a privilege, not a right.

12. The qualifications for a privilege always have to be related to the privilege itself. Thus to obtain a driver’s license, no one cares whether you are gay or straight; that has nothing to do with the privilege of driving. But being able to see, and to read English, are both essential to driving. So these are made part of the qualifications for obtaining the privilege of having a driver’s license.

13. Are there qualifications for a marriage license? Most certainly: (a) each applicant has to be an adult; (b) not already married; and (c) the two applicants for any one license, which is unique in granting a privilege not to an individual, but to a couple, must be of the opposite sex.

Well, why is this requirement justified? What does the sex of the partners have to do with getting married?

14. All right, we are going to go back to basics here. Forget for a moment everything you have learned, or think you believe, about human relationships. In fact, let’s turn the question on its head. I would like you to engage in the following thought experiment:

Imagine a society in which homosexual relationships were the norm, and not the exception. Suppose that this society, like that in Orwell’s novel 1984, had completely eliminated the individual burden of child-rearing. All conception and child-raising functions were taken over by the State, which received a constant supply of eggs and sperm from the children it reared to adulthood. Men could live only with other men, and women with women, precisely so the State would not have to worry about individual couples bringing a rogue child into the world. Remember: this is the norm, so that no individual would even conceive of trying to make a lifelong partnership with someone of the opposite sex; if they ever tried it, the penalty would be death. (In fact, you could take the thought experiment even further, and hypothesize that this society had finally discovered the gene that made people gay, and thereafter ruthlessly eliminated all fetuses that did not possess the gene, so that the society was 100% homosexually oriented.)

My question is this: In such a society, would there ever evolve, of its own natural force and not by imitation with some other society, an institution which one could fairly call “marriage”?

In other words, would male pairs, or female pairs, in such a society ever be motivated to conceive of a relationship that bound them for life, in which they pledged to the other to be true “in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?” (I grant you readily that many couples might well choose to remain together for life, but what would they add---particularly with no-fault divorces---by making it a legally solemnized relationship which then required the trauma of a divorce to be free of it?) What possible advantage could be seen in such a relationship, given the particular society I have hypothesized?

If you are true to my instructions, and have put aside everything you thought you knew about human relationships, your honest answer would have to be: “No, there is no social reason why an institution such as ‘marriage’ would ever arise in such a society.” Fine: now let’s go back to the logical consequences of that conclusion.

15. It is, however, an historical fact that the institution we refer to as “marriage” did evolve---in a society in which heterosexual relationships were the norm.

16. So the logic of evolution tells us that that the emergence of such an institution must have had a certain “survival value”---that is, it ensured the survival of the species more than would have been the case without its existence. (This is, I’m afraid, self- evident; otherwise we would not be where we are now, able to entertain the idea whether gay “marriage” in this day and age makes any sociological sense.)

17. And now we are in a position to compare the two societies---the primitive, paleolithic (and, if you will, patriarchal) society in which marriage evolved historically as an institution; and the ultra-modern, technologically advanced society which is 100% homosexual and has no need of “marriage”, either to ensure the survival of particular lines (which is not an issue in the society as imagined, because there are no deliberately preserved lines whatsoever) or of the species itself.

18. In this comparison, I submit, the institution of “marriage” may be seen as necessary to the survival of a traditional heterosexual society (because the institution unquestionably evolved, and has led---thus far, at any rate---to that survival), while it has no function whatsoever to fill in the hypothetical purely homosexual society.

19. The only rational conclusion it is possible to draw at this point is that in the case of the demands for marriage as a “right”, in order to eliminate society's supposed “discrimination” of denying the privilege of marriage to gay couples, the demands themselves are guided, like that of the dog in the manger, by a confusion of roles. In Aesop’s fable, the dog would not allow the ox to come into the manger to eat the straw---but the dog itself could not subsist on straw. Yet the dog saw the ox as a rival, and used its bark (and threatened bite) to intimidate the ox away from what only the ox could in the end make use of. The moral of the fable was: "People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves."

20. So we have gay couples demanding that they be allowed to qualify for the privilege of “marriage”, without regard to their sex or sexual orientation, even though such a "marriage" would add nothing to the rights they now enjoy already, and would not advance the preservation of the society that extended them such a privilege. As our thought experiment shows, they cannot want marriage for anything it will do for them, over and above what their own feelings for each other already do, to enhance their relationship. This is especially the case since, with the law finally passed by the California legislature in 2005, they have complete and full equality of rights with those of married couples. [UPDATE 11/24/2008: To complain that the passage of Prop. 8 prevents same-sex couples from receiving the "benefits" of being married under federal laws is to misunderstand the nature of our federal system. The federal Defense of Marriage Act defines "marriage" as between a man and a woman for purposes of federal law, and nothing California enacted could change that. See this post for a fuller explanation.]

I conclude that the expressed desire of gays to be allowed to enjoy the state-conferred privilege of “marriage” as their "right"can be, I am sorry to have to say, only a ruse. For if it were just a case of gays desiring greener pastures, then the foregoing argument would be dispositive, and no gay person would wish to argue for the “right” to marry on the ground that “it looks better than a civil union.” But (and based on the recent demonstrations, I defy you to come forward with even one example) there will not be a single activist homosexual who can be convinced, say, by the foregoing argument that the supporters of Proposition 8 actually have a rational (rather than hate-filled, as most are suggesting) basis for their vote. No, the extremely high level of emotion displayed tells me that there are other reasons at stake here---reasons that can only incidentally have anything to do with the enhancement of gay relationships.




The “gay marriage” movement is thus based on ulterior motives---perhaps having more to do with how they see themselves, and how they think others see them, than with any concern for the role that marriage actually plays in a society, based on how it actually evolved. It has gotten as far as it has by confusing what is a “right” in the eyes of the law with what is actually a privilege, and by persuading everyone that there is a right here which is being denied, unfairly (and hatefully) denied. But if what is involved is not actually a "right," then the entire platform of justice is removed from the dispute. We are back to talking simply whether there is a rational basis for society to decide that only certain people may marry---not brothers with sisters, not children with adults, and not men with men or women with women.

I agree that privileges must be rationally based in order to continue to have legal protection and definition. But I have seen no argument to date that shows me that the definition of marriage as given in Proposition 8 is not rational. (To argue, as did four members of the California Supreme Court, that the definition is "discriminatory" is legal flimflam, as I have demonstrated with the series of propositions set out above. Grant that, and its "unconstitutionality" follows as a matter of course.) But to call a privilege "discriminatory" is to say nothing at all. Privileges have to discriminate, since they entail the drawing of lines. If the right not to be discriminated against trumps the right to define a rationally based privilege, then there can be no privileges at all---and that is the definition of anarchy.

If we cannot maintain that basic distinction in our society, if we are going to allow emotion to override it, then we richly deserve the chaos that will ensue.

The Physics of Christianity: Frank Tipler on the Virgin Birth

This will be one of the most unusual posts I have put up on this blog, which is normally devoted to issues of the interface between law (including especially canon law) and The Episcopal Church. However, as I noted in this earlier post, I recently came across Frank Tipler's The Physics of Christianity, and I regard that book as one of the most remarkable books about Christianity that I have ever read. In fact, the book is so remarkable that I have decided, at the risk of my reputation as a reliable curmudgeon, who can always be counted on to tell you what is wrong with a particular act or position taken by those in charge at TEC, to tell you instead about some of the things which this amazing book shows are inescapably correct about traditional Christian belief. I use the word "inescapably" because I am a slave of logic: show me a tight logical argument leading to an inexorable conclusion, and I will follow that argument wherever it leads, no matter what the conclusion, so long as logic demonstrates ineluctably its inevitability. (How's that for a prose style---I managed to use the words "inescapably", "inexorable," "ineluctably" and "inevitability" all in one sentence. My regular readers will, I know, forgive me, and for those of you who have landed here for the first time, please do not be put off, but read on.)

The book is, as I described in my earlier post on it, written by a man who has impeccable credentials as a physicist, having obtained his doctorate under John Archibald Wheeler (the man who named the black hole and whose most famous student was Richard Feynman). The mathematics which underlie his theology are not open to dispute, having been cited by his peers for outstanding achievement. What I want to show you in this post is not his mathematics, but a first-class example of Frank Tipler's theology---specifically, that having to do with the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For he manages to bring to this abstruse topic---about which I admit, as a lifelong Episcopalian, I have heretofore been comfortably fuzzy ("yes, of course, God can do whatever He wants, even if we mere mortals cannot fathom how He did it")---a rigor and respect for the laws of nature, as currently maintained by thoroughly reputable scientists, that is simply breathtaking. In short, his conclusions---and the evidence he marshals to support them---will, to use a phrase from the '60's that is perfectly applicable here, blow your mind. So please sit back, open your mind (meaning: clear it of all preconceived notions), and be prepared to embrace the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

The first task is to set the context. If you, as a scholarly Christian, or as one who is at any rate well-versed in the tenets of the faith, are already fully familiar with the issue to which the words "virgin birth" refer, then please feel free to skip the next few paragraphs. Briefly, for the rest of us, the issue is what to make of the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke which recite plainly that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was a virgin when she conceived Him through the Holy Spirit, or---to use the familiar words of the Nicene Creed---"[Jesus] was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." To refresh your theology, here are the relevant passages from Matthew and Luke. First, Matthew, ch. 1, verses 18-25:

1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 1:19 Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. 1:20 When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 1:21 She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 1:22 This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 1:23 “Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” 1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He took his wife, 1:25 but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus.

And here is Luke, ch. 1, verses 26-38:

1:26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, 1:27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. 1:28 The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!” 1:29 But she was greatly troubled by his words and began to wonder about the meaning of this greeting. 1:30 So the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! 1:31 Listen: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 1:32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 1:33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.” 1:34 Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?” 1:35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God.

1:36 “And look, your relative Elizabeth has also become pregnant with a son in her old age – although she was called barren, she is now in her sixth month! 1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 1:38 So Mary said, “Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let this happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The issue squarely presented by these two passages is this: how can a virgin conceive a child without first "knowing" a man? Having thus set the stage, I now turn the discussion over to physicist Frank Tipler.

As any proper theologian would, Professor Tipler begins with the texts themselves. And with regard to the texts, the most prominent issue is the word translated in both passages above as "virgin", which I have put in bold for easy reference. In all three cases, the word used in the Greek manuscripts that we have for Matthew and Luke is parthenos, which was the word used by Greeks in the first century for "an unmarried young woman, a virgin." Matthew's passage actually is referring to and quoting an Old Testament text, Isaiah 7:14, in which the Hebrew word used is 'almah, a word that generally means "young woman," and in some contexts (e.g., Genesis 24:43) means "virgin" as we understand it. However, as Tipler points out, there is a more specific word for "virgin" in modern Hebrew: betulah. In a very well-informed discourse that takes up more than eleven pages in Prof. Tipler's book, the reader is treated to one of the best elucidations I have ever read about the state of the current scholarship on the use and interpretation of these three words in the Bible, and on what Matthew and Luke understood by their use of the (Septuagint) word parthenos. In addition, the reader is introduced---for the first time, to my knowledge, in any commentary on these books of the Bible---to a well-grounded discussion of exactly what first-century readers would have believed or understood about the subject of human reproduction at that time. And here Professor Tipler scores, in my view, a real coup against traditional Biblical scholars: he shows that first-century readers of the passages in Matthew and Luke would also have understood references in Mark, John and the Pauline epistles (where the word parthenos does not expressly appear), based on the contemporary understanding of how babies were conceived, to refer to a virgin birth for Jesus---i.e., a baby conceived without the aid of a human father.

All this, however, is served up just as an appetizer. So we have most of the authors of the New Testament---Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, plus the apostle Paul---capable of being read as supporting a virgin birth for Jesus in accordance with their contemporary understanding of what occurred in His case. How does that realization assist us in the twenty-first century, with our so much greater knowledge of science and biological facts? Please, I invite you, sit down to the main course, and read on.

Frank Tipler is first and foremost a scientist, and only secondarily a top-notch physicist. As a scientist, he makes it his rule to understand any discipline which he endeavors to expound. And his native genius ensures that he can use his knowledge of physics and mathematics to apply himself to other scientific disciplines as he may require to support the faith that he has, through his efforts to follow the truth wherever it may lead him, uncovered. (Remember that he was, as most scientists today are, an agnostic when he began to explore the mathematical consequences of standard current physical theories.) With my background in physics and mathematics, I can follow to a certain extent his mathematics, and the physical conclusions he draws from the mathematics. But I have to say that I am here only as a simple reporter of what he says about biology and genetics; I have no extended training in either of these fields. If anyone most knowledgeable in those sciences can demonstrate what Prof. Tipler says to be false, then so be it, and the wonderful edifice that he has constructed will fall. To give him his due, he would be the first, as a scientist, to recognize any falsity in his biological and genetic claims. But I have to give him full credit for his unstinting willingness to follow his rational beliefs to the farthest extent to which he is able to push them---even if the result was that he had no other option than to become a devout believer of Christianity, and could no longer sustain his agnosticism. Indeed, this is Frank Tipler's most singular achievement: as a scientist, he has demonstrated mathematically that if the laws of physics are true (and everything we do at every single moment of every day is premised on the assumption that those laws are true), then God must of necessity exist. No rational scientist, he implies, could believe otherwise---even though most of his peers think he is nuts (and those at his own University have as a consequence, he reports, deliberately deprived him of ordinary salary increases---see my previous post). Well, I have to confess that my love of logic resonates with his mathematical reasoning, and since his own peers have given him accolades for his mathematics, there is no other conclusion I can draw than that he is, like John the Baptist, a "voice crying in the wilderness"---and being punished for it as well.

But I digress, in my admiration for the main thrust of his book. Back to the issue at hand: the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. How could such an event scientifically take place? And, even more important: if there were a scientific explanation for such an event, how could we prove today that it actually happened? These are the questions to which Professor Tipler brings his expertise, and to which I now invite your attention.

In what follows, you must first appreciate the theological purity of the explanation. That is to say, Professor Tipler has devoted the earlier chapters of his book to demonstrating first, not only the necessary existence of God according to the laws of physics, but also the necessary existence of the Trinity---God, Son, and Holy Ghost, from before time and space began. By jumping to his discussion of the virgin birth, I am skipping over all the earlier discussion which proves the necessary existence of the Holy Trinity as Three Persons in One. (I will come back to that in a later post, after having established Prof. Tipler's bona fides on a topic as readily approachable, as well as fantastic, as the virgin birth of Jesus.) So in the passage that follows (from p. 166), please understand that for Professor Tipler, there is no question that Jesus the Son of God predated all creation, and coexists with the Father and the Holy Ghost, while Jesus the man was indeed conceived of a virgin:

I shall now describe a simple mechanism, completely consistent with known physical law, whereby a virgin birth can occur via the action of the Father through the Holy Spirit. In this mechanism, the mind of the virginally conceived Jesus would be in resonance with, and in complete harmony with, the Son from the instant of formation of the mind in the nervous tissue of the embryo. He would be completely human, with the rational mind of a human, but nevertheless be the Son. Furthermore, I shall show that if the Virgin Birth occurred in the manner I propose, the Virgin Birth hypothesis can be verified by direct experiment. The Virgin Birth would no longer rest on Mary's word alone. We would be able to show directly, without reference to human testimony, that Luke and Matthew merely reported the facts as related to them by a completely truthful Mary. A direct experimental confirmation of the Virgin Birth would also support the claim that Matthew and Luke were just reporting the facts when they described the risen Jesus.

Extraordinary words, are they not? (Do you begin to see why I felt that this book is worthy of your attention?)

There follows an extensive discursus on the phenomenon of parthenogenesis (literally, from the Greek, "virgin birth") in animals as well as in humans. (Yes, I said humans---Prof. Tipler cites the scientific references.) Then he stakes his claim:

I propose that Jesus was a special type of XX male, a type that is quite rare in humans but extensively studied [footnote omitted]. Approximately 1 out of every 20,000 human males is an XX male. . . . An XX male results when a single key gene for maleness on the Y chromosome (the SRY gene) is inserted into an X chromosome. One possibility is that all (or at least many) of the Y chromosome genes were inserted into one of Mary's X chromosomes and that, in her, one of the standard mechanisms used to turn off genes was active on these inserted Y genes. (There is an RNA process that can turn off an entire X chromosome. This is the most elegant turnoff mechanism.) Jesus would then have resulted when one of Mary's eggs started to divide before it became haploid and with the Y genes activated (and, of course, with the extra X genes deactivated). . . .

I hope I have quoted enough here to enable qualified geneticists to ascertain the basis of Professor Tipler's claim to have an explanation for the Virgin Birth of Jesus. As I understand it, the genetics of Jesus would have marked him as an unusually rare male of the species, and if we could somehow have access to a blood sample, we could determine whether or not Professor Tipler's theory was correct. And to give him his due, Prof. Tipler states as much:

If a sample of Jesus' blood and/or flesh could be obtained, my proposal could easily be tested by carrying out two distinct DNA tests for sex: (1) test for the Y genes and (2) test for the two alleles (different gene forms) of X chromosome genes. In other words, a male born of a virgin would have two X chromosome genes for each of its counterpart Y genes. Normal males would only have one X chromosome gene for each Y counterpart gene. This pairing would apply to each of the thirteen genes on the Y chromosome that has an X counterpart.

The odds of such a "virgin birth" would truly be fantastic, as Professor Tipler calculates here:

Such a virgin birth would be improbable. If the measured probability that a single Y gene is inserted into an X chromosome is 1 in 20,000, then the probability that all Y genes are inserted into an X chromosome is 1/20,000 raised to the 28th power, the power corresponding to the number of Y genes. (Assuming that the insertion of each Y gene has equal probability and that these insertions are independent.) There have been only about 100 billion humans born since behaviorally modern Homo sapiens evolved . . . .

Thus, the virgin birth of such an XX male would be unique in human history even if there were only two such Y genes inserted into an X chromosome. (I assume an upper bound to the rate of virgin birth is 1/300. Then the probability of a virgin birth of a male with 2 Y genes is 1/[300][20,000][20,000] = 1/120 billion.) But . . . if such an event had to occur [for God to exist according to physical laws that have shown themselves thus far as true], then the Virgin Birth probability would become 1; that is, certain to occur. In other words, it would be a miracle!

But how can we today test the evidence available to us for proof of such a birth occurring more than 2,000 years ago? The answer, according to Professor Tipler (and a growing number of scientists), is to conduct scientific analysis on the bloodstains that allegedly were left on two pieces of cloth that are claimed to have enshrouded the body of Jesus as laid in the tomb outside of Jerusalem. The principal cloth, used to wrap his body, was the Shroud of Turin, and the second cloth was one that was put over his face, and called today the Sudarium of Oviedo. Note that they have entirely independent histories, and repose in two different places. The age of the cloth of the Shroud has supposedly been established by radiocarbon analysis as dating from the 14th century, but Professor Tipler provides an exhaustive review (based on the physics with which he is most familiar) as to why that dating is most probably wrong. And indeed, as he shows from the available scientific evidence, the correlation in the location and type of bloodstains between the two cloths establishes a strong possibility that they once covered the same corpse. Given that the Oviedo cloth is known to have existed as of about 1000 A.D. ---four centuries or so before the "known" dating of the Shroud according to radiocarbon decay analysis, the accuracy of the latter is called into question.

However, this conclusion---that the Shroud of Turin and the Oviedo Sudarium are intimately related---is almost trifling compared to where Professor Tipler goes next. Scientist that he is, he asks whether anyone has conducted a DNA analysis of the bloodstains on the two cloths, to determine whether (a) the cloths have the same DNA imprint, and so are unquestionably related, but (b) whether it is possible, from the analyses that have been conducted and reported in the literature, to ascertain whether, assuming that the blood on both cloths was that of the crucified Jesus, its genetic profile was consistent with his hypothesis of an unusual (i.e., miraculous) XX male birth.

It turns out, as Professor Tipler reports, that DNA analyses have been conducted of both the bloodstains on the Turin Shroud and on the Oviedo Sudarium:

In January 1993 a group of Italian researchers, led by Professor Marcello Canale of the Institute of Legal Medicine in Genoa, conducted a DNA analysis of the blood on the Shroud. This group included several workers who had invented the standard DNA test for gender. . . .

This group simultaneously tested the blood on the Oviedo Cloth.

Imagine his surprise, therefore, when he could not obtain, through the usual library channels, a copy of their published results. Even more, it developed that the results the group had obtained were published in a very non-standard form:

. . . The results were published, in Italian, in the very obscure journal devoted to the study of the Turin Shroud. Furthermore, only the raw data were published. That is, the Genoa team published black-and-white Xerox copies of the computer output of the DNA analyzer. This is never, never done. Always, the data are presented in a neat table or figure, and they are accompanied by a discussion of their significance. The Genoa team made no effort to interpret their data. . . .

Being the scientist that he is, Frank Tipler went to work on the raw data of the Italians' tests, and reported triumphantly (the italics are in the original):

But I was able to interpret the data at once. They are the expected signature of the DNA of a male born in a Virgin Birth! The data are presented in standard tabular form in Tables 7.1 and 7.2. . . .

The standard DNA test for sex is the amelogenin test I mentioned earlier. The Italians performed this test, which gave 106 base pairs for the X form of amelogenin and 112 base pairs for the Y form. There is a phenomenon called sputtering, which can cause the actual value obtained to differ by 1 base pair from the expected value.

The Turin Shroud data show 107 (106 +1) but no trace of a 112 base pair gene. The Oviedo Cloth data show 105 (106 - 1) but no trace of a 112 base pair. The X chromosome is present, but there is no evidence of a Y chromosome. This is the expected signature of the simplest virgin birth, the XX male generated by an SRY inserted into an X chromosome. It is not what would be expected of a standard male.

Thus The Physics of Christianity not only provides a physical explanation for how the virgin birth reported in the New Testament would be possible, but it also uses the available physical evidence to provide a stunning verification of Tipler's hypothesis---a verification which is all the more amazing because it is based on reported results that were never properly presented or interpreted by those who obtained them.

It is for this reason alone that I commend Frank Tipler's book to all who wish to ground their faith on the physical evidence and common sense that God has given us. Professor Tipler is a unique breed: he is someone who has followed the available evidence, and who has worked out the consequent mathematics, to a conclusion which, no matter how much his colleagues might wish to avoid it, shows that:

A. There is definitely a God Who created the universe in which we find ourselves (to be faithful to his proof, I should use the plural, "universes"---but more on that later);

B. This God indeed has an only-begotten Son, Jesus, who together with the Holy Spirit constitute three separate persons forming one indivisible trinity;

C. The Son---Jesus---although existing before (and throughout) all space and time, came to this planet and took on the form of a man, the product of a unique and one-time Virgin Birth; and

D. Evidence for that unique and one-time birth, as well as for His Resurrection itself, has been waiting for nearly two thousand years for mankind to develop the skills and technology needed to assess it.

It is, as I say, a remarkable thesis, in what is an even more remarkable book. As time permits in the coming weeks, I shall return to it, because this synopsis of just one chapter in it does not begin to give it its due.

"Know the Enemy": the Office of the Presiding Bishop

This will be the second in a series of posts honoring Sun-Tzu's maxim, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." In the first post, I examined the historical beginnings of The Episcopal Church, and showed how it came into being as an "unincorporated association of churches in the several States organized as dioceses." In this post I will focus on the office of the presiding bishop, and show how it has evolved in a way that is completely contrary to the intent of those who first organized the Church.

As I related briefly in the earlier post, by the time the first shots of the Revolutionary War were heard "'round the world" at Concord in April 1775, the Church of England in America had managed its affairs without the presence of a single bishop in the Colonies for 168 years. This fact, more than any other, determined the attitudes of those who met toward the conclusion of the War to begin the organization of a national Church. While the clergy were strongly of the opinion that local bishops were required for the governance of the Church, they could not see any means of having one consecrated. And they recognized that the laity had a healthy suspicion of the powers that any such bishop, if appointed under the authority of the King of England, might exercise.

Thus it was that the Rev. Dr. William White, rector of Christ Church and St. Peter's in Philadelphia (and future bishop), published in 1782 a very influential pamphlet entitled The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered. In the Preface to that work, he observed:

A prejudice has prevailed with many, that the Episcopal churches cannot otherwise exist than under the dominion of Great Britain. A church government that would contain the constituent principles of the Church of England, and yet be independent of foreign jurisdiction or influence, would remove that anxiety which at present hangs heavy on the minds of many sincere persons.

In Chapter III, Dr. White set out his plan for the governance and purposes of a national Church:

As the churches [of England in the Colonies] in question extend over an immense space of country, it can never be expected, that representatives from each church should assemble in one place; it will be more convenient for them to associate in small districts, from which representatives may be sent to three different bodies, the continent being supposed divided into that number of larger districts. From these may be elected a body representing the whole.

In each smaller district, there should be elected a general vestry or convention, consisting of a convenient number (the minister to be one) from the vestry or congregation of each church, or of every two or more churches, according to their respective ability of supporting a minister. They should elect a clergyman their permanent president; who, in conjunction with other clergymen to be also appointed by the body, may exercise such powers as are purely spiritual, particularly that of admitting to the ministry; the presiding clergyman, and others to be liable to be deprived for just causes, by a fair process, and under reasonable laws; meetings to be held as often as occasion may require.

The assemblies in the three larger districts may consist of a convenient number of members, sent from each of the smaller districts severally within their bounds, equally composed of clergy and laity, and voted for by those orders promiscuously; the presiding clergyman to be always one, and these bodies to meet once in every year.

The continental representative body may consist of a convenient number from each of the larger districts, formed equally of clergy and laity, and among the clergy, formed equally of presiding ministers and others; to meet statedly once in three years. The use of this and the preceding representative bodies is to make such regulations, and receive appeals in such matters only, as shall be judged necessary for their continuing one religious communion.

As we now know, this plan was in large part eventually adopted. His first group comprises what became the dioceses; the second tier describes what became the provincial synods; and the third tier is what became General Convention, meeting every three years. I have added the bold emphasis to the last sentence to underscore the common sentiment at the time, which Dr. White perfectly expresses, about the limited functions that all such church structures should serve. Notice that there is nothing yet said about any bishops, but the term "presiding clergyman" is used. 

It is in the next chapter, Chapter IV, that Dr. White introduces the touchy subject of the episcopacy:

Wherever these churches have been erected [in the Colonies], the ecclesiastical government of the church of England has been adhered to; they have depended on the English bishops for ordination of their clergy, and on no occasion expressed a dissatisfaction with Episcopacy. This, considering the liberty they enjoyed in common with others, of forming their churches on whatever plan they liked best, is a presumptive proof of their preferring the Episcopal government . . . .

On the other hand there cannot be produced an instance of laymen in America, unless in the very infancy of the settlements, soliciting the introduction of a bishop; it was probably by a great majority of them thought an hazardous experiment. How far the prerogative of the king as head of the church might be construed to extend over the colonies, whether a bishop would bring with him that part of the law which respects ecclesiastical matters, and whether the civil powers vested in bishops in England would accompany that order to America, were questions which for aught they knew would include principles and produce consequences, dangerous and destructive to their civil rights.

From these two facts it may fairly be inferred, that the Episcopalians on this continent will wish to institute among themselves an Episcopal government, as soon as it shall appear practicable, and that this government will not be attended with the danger of tyranny, either temporal or spiritual.

(Emphasis again added; footnotes omitted.) After observing that "the peculiar circumstances of the war in which our country is engaged preclude us from procuring the [episcopal] succession in those quarters to which alone application could consistently be made; the danger of offending the British government constraining (perhaps) a refusal of what, it would of course be indelicate to ask", Dr. White notes the dilemma facing faithful Episcopalians in America, and then proposes his compromise solution:

(Now, on the other hand, to depart from Episcopacy, would be giving up a leading characteristic of the communion; which, however indifferently considered as to divine appointment, might be productive of all the evils generally attending changes of this sort. On the other hand, by delaying to adopt measures for the continuance of the ministry, the very existence of the churches is hazarded, and duties of positive and indispensable obligation are neglected.)

The conduct meant to be recommended, as founded on the preceding sentiments, is to include in the proposed frame of government a general approbation of Episcopacy, and a declaration of an intention to procure the succession, as soon as conveniently may be; but in the mean time to carry the plan into effect without waiting for the succession.

Thus came the language about a "presiding clergyman" heading up the various regional and national assemblies. However, as matters turned out, the clergy in Connecticut, who had been mostly loyal to the King during the War and who had evidenced a strong disdain for allowing any role by the laity in their Church's governance, ended up forcing the issue. Meeting in secret (because as Bishop Seabury later admitted, "the civil authority in Connecticut is Presbyterian, and therefore could not be supposed would petition for a Bishop"), right after news came of the American victory at Yorktown in 1783, they elected one of their own, Dr. Samuel Seabury, to the post. Their sending him to England for consecration, England's refusal and his subsequent consecration by non-juring bishops in Scotland, eventually forced Parliament to amend the law to allow foreign bishops to be consecrated in England without swearing allegiance to the King, as I related in the first post. The result was that in 1785 Dr. White and Samuel Provoost of New York became the first American bishops consecrated in England, and the nascent American "Anglican Church" was now an Episcopal Church, with its own bishops.

With the adoption of a governing Constitution in 1789, the new Church took shape, as I stated, largely as Bishop White had proposed in 1782. General Convention met in session just once every three years, while State diocesan conventions met as often as they provided in their own constitutions---some annually, and others as often as circumstances allowed. Bishop White presided over the first General Convention of the Church in 1789. When Bishop Seabury signed the Constitution in October of that year, he increased to three the total number of bishops in the Church, and pursuant to the terms of Article III, they met (without Bishop Provoost, who could not attend) as the first House of Bishops. They agreed on a rule of seniority by date of ordination, and thus Bishop Seabury became the first "president of the House." 

General Convention met again in 1792, when all three bishops were present, along with the newest American bishop to be consecrated in England, Bishop Madison of Virginia. (Together the four consecrated for the first time on American soil yet another newly elected bishop, Bishop Claggett of Maryland.) With there now being five members in the House of Bishops, the rule of seniority was changed to a rule of rotation, and Bishop Provoost of New York assumed the presidency. In 1795 it was William White's turn, and he continued in that position at the next Convention when the Bishop scheduled to take it was absent, and at the Convention after that when it was uncertain whose turn it was to preside. Finally, in 1804 the Bishops agreed again on a rule of seniority for their presiding officer. Since Bishop White was now the senior bishop, and there was not yet any rule of mandatory retirement, he continued to preside over the House of Bishops until his death in 1836 at the ripe old age of eighty-eight.

Although the words "presiding bishop" were not used in the Constitution of the Church until its revision in 1901, White & Dykman (Vol. I, pp. 23-24) note that the term had been in use "in the canons and elsewhere [e.g., in the Book of Common Prayer since 1792] for many years, and the duties and responsibility gradually attached thereto brought the office into existence long before it appeared in the Constitution. . . . From being simply the president of the House of Bishops he was becoming the Presiding Bishop of the Church." However, the increasing level of responsibility, placed on the shoulders of "one who has passed the limits of threescore years and ten, and is already carrying a burden as heavy as he can bear," as the 72-year-old Most Rev. John Williams told the House in 1887, would seem to make "the arrangement . . . not only unwise, but almost cruel."

In response, the bishops made provision for the presiding bishop to delegate to an elected "chairman of the House" such duties and responsibilities as the latter saw fit, and then gave the position of Presiding Bishop official recognition in the completely revised Constitution of 1901. But the rule making assumption of the office mandatory for the senior bishop in the House remained unchanged, and provoked a plea by the Most Rev. Thomas March Clark, who had succeeded Bishop Williams in 1899 as Presiding Bishop at the age of eighty-seven, to make the office elective by the House of Bishops, with the concurrence of the House of Deputies. An appropriate amendment was drafted for the 1904 General Convention, but due to many intervening institutional changes of mind by the House of Bishops, the office of Presiding Bishop was not made elective under the Constitution until 1919. Even then, the senior bishop then in office (Bishop Daniel Tuttle, who had opposed making the office elective) did not die until after the Convention of 1922, so that the first Presiding Bishop to be elected in General Convention was Bishop Murray of Maryland, in 1925.

Throughout all this history of the office, the presiding bishop continued to retain, following his assuming the office, his diocesan jurisdiction and responsibilities. (This was a natural consequence of how his function was originally conceived: he was one diocesan among others, elected to preside over their assemblies.) At the Convention of 1940, the invitation of the Diocese of Washington to designate its National Cathedral as the official seat of the Presiding Bishop was approved. And in 1943, as both a portent, perhaps, of changes to come, as well as a reflection of the increasing importance of the office itself, General Convention voted to require the presiding bishop to resign from his diocesan jurisdiction upon election. At the same time, a proposal was made in the House of Deputies to add language to the Constitution allowing General Convention to give the presiding bishop a see, but the designation of particular territory from which to constitute such a see proved highly problematic, and in 1946 the proposal was dropped. Messrs. White & Dykman observe (Vol. I, p. 29, with emphasis added):

To provide the Presiding Bishop with anything like an archbishop's traditional jurisdiction was impossible. Metropolitical jurisdiction over a province of the Church and the dioceses therein, arming the metropolitan or archbishop with visitatorial and juridical powers, could not be artificially grafted upon a national Church, the polity of which still reflected its origin in a federation of equal and independent Churches in the several states.

1946 is indeed a watershed year in the history of the presiding bishop's office, because everything began to change with the installation of the Most Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill as Presiding Bishop in 1947. Sherrill, who helped found, and became the first president of, the National Council of Churches, and who later was a president of the World Council of Churches, had served previously as Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, one of the largest in the Church in terms of parishes and Average Sunday Attendance, and was no stranger to church bureaucracies. (As if to signify the new prominence he was assuming in the life of the national Church, he also has the dubious distinction of being the first Presiding Bishop to appear on the cover of Time Magazine.) He was extremely well-connected, and served as a member of the Yale University Corporation, along with Robert Taft and Dean Acheson. He also held for a long time the post of president of Massachusetts General Hospital. Through connections such as those, he started the Episcopal Church Foundation to underwrite new efforts at church planting, and together with his wife he established an entirely new office in Greenwich, Connecticut to develop a nationwide curriculum for Christian education. It was also under his tenure that the Standing Liturgical Commission began a series of studies that would, twenty-five years later, culminate in a comprehensive revision of the Book of Common Prayer. The bureaucracy of the Church expanded greatly during his term of office from 1947 to 1958, and he was personally responsible for most of the hiring. 

Loren Mead, who was part of the national headquarters at the time, records his recollections of the transformation that occurred under Bishop Sherrill (bold added for emphasis):

I shook the hand of the first new kind of Presiding Bishop − Henry Knox Sherrill. (This is technically not exact, but it makes good copy. Somebody else had begun the transition to the new kind of presiding bishop earlier, but Henry Knox Sherrill is the one who made it stick.) He became a different kind of presiding bishop because we vastly expanded our national staff after the second world war, because that is when we started talking about "program" − like Christian education. (Remember Greenwich and Seabury House where we put an expanded education staff that wouldn't fit inside "Mission House" at "481" before 815 existed?) The Presiding Bishop became head of a staff, not just somebody who wielded the gavel at House of Bishops' meetings. Before then, our "national" stuff was Missions. Period. Overseas, mostly, but secondarily "home." 

In his memoir just linked, Loren Mead goes on to relate how the issue of civil rights came to the fore during Bishop Sherrill's term. Following the desegregation decisions by the United States Supreme Court in 1954, Bishop Sherrill canceled plans to hold General Convention in still-segregated Houston in 1955 rather than face the scrutiny of the Anglican Congress and his own World Council of Churches, meeting later that summer. During the tenure of his successor, Presiding Bishop Lichtenberger (1958-64), the bureaucracy expanded to accommodate the Church's concerns with "social justice" programs (chiefly relating to the civil rights movement) and the growing ecumenical movement. An invitation from the controversial Eugene Carson Blake of the Presbyterians to discuss a union of that Church, PECUSA, the Methodists and the United Church of Christ into one church was accepted by General Convention in 1961, and Blake and the equally controversial Bishop James Pike went to work on a proposal. After many drafts and many years of discussions, however, the respective churches balked at further steps toward union. Nevertheless, the result of these efforts was the establishment of the principle that a permanent ecumenical staff at national headquarters would take on the responsibility for the Church's interfaith relationships, rather than the individual diocesan bishops. 

The emphasis on "program" that began under Bishop Sherrill is what changed the character of the national Church, and created the conglomeration known as "815." (As Loren Mead notes in his reminiscences, the headquarters of TEC at 815 Second Avenue in New York City were not ready for occupancy until 1963, during Bishop Lichtenberger's final years. Prior to that time, although Bishop Sherrill moved the office temporarily to Greenwich both to be with his wife, and because of the lack of space to accommodate its growing bureaucracy, the Church's national office had been in the "Mission House" of the Domestic and Foreign Mission Society, at 481 Fourth Avenue [now Park Avenue South].) By concentrating on "programs"---which by definition had to continue in existence the entire time between the triennial sessions of General Convention---815 secured its ability to have a reason to function on its own, independent of General Convention. With the shift in control came a shift of budget and responsibility that was to have far-reaching consequences.

Under the leadership of Presiding Bishop John Hines (1965-74), there was launched the General Convention Special Program (GCSP), which the contemporary Loren Mead portrays as the beginning of a fatal shift in roles:

I think it was in John Hines's time that "primatial creep" set in. The instrument was the General Convention Special Program (GCSP). It was one of those things that simply had to be done − history demanded that we face it. You'll remember the fireworks and anxiety about national staff "interfering" with dioceses (especially dioceses in the South where racial issues were painful and keen). Primatial creep is not my name for what happened to the Presiding Bishop − but for what happened to the House of Bishops. The House of Bishops had to work with conflict between dioceses and 815. (By now it had been built. Remember, it was 1963 when it was finished and we actually had national staff located in one place.)

That − in my opinion − was when the House of Bishops first began usurping the power of the bicameral legislative process that was in our constitution. The racial issue was just too painful and sensitive, so the bishops had to take it over and negotiate through the conflict years. Maybe it had to happen, just as John Hines had to go beyond where others had gone before.

Church sociologist William Swatos (on p. 208 of the article referenced in the previous post, and which I shall hereafter cite simply as "Swatos 2005") characterizes GCSP as "a program to channel a relatively massive fundraising effort to community agencies working principally on behalf of ethnic minorities." He seconds Mead's first-person account of the change that took place in the Church as a result of GCSP:

There is undoubtedly a book to be written on GCSP, but the thesis here is a relatively simple one; namely, that GCSP and Hines's primacy became problematic within the life of the Episcopal Church. This was not because of its focus on minorities, which was already present in the Lichtenberger years, but for two other reasons. First, funds were channeled to local secular agencies without consultation with either diocesan authorities (principally the bishops of the dioceses involved) or church groups already involved in working with minority ministries. Second, the leadership of GCSP eschewed the leadership within the church already working on these issues. Again, this was allowed to occur first because of Hines's personal charisma (often referred to in his case as "prophetic leadership") in generating the funds, principally from the women of the church, and then because of the office charisma of the PB that enabled him to work unchecked.

In other words, through the persona of Presiding Bishop John Hines, "815" began to develop an identity and constituency of its own that was independent of the dioceses which made up the Episcopal Church. With his ability to attract funds above and beyond the normal voluntary diocesan contributions, and following on the buildup of staff that occurred under his predecessors, Hines was successful in establishing the first "permanent" bureaucracy at national headquarters, with a devotion solely to the social programs of the Church that was independent both of General Convention and of the Executive Council that was expected to function in its place during the period between national conventions. (We will take a look at the development of each of those bodies as well in subsequent posts.)

This independence from the dioceses had a price, however. Because the dioceses saw themselves as being cut out of the loop, they reduced the level of their contributions, and the result was a large reduction in both staff and budget at 815 during the latter part of Hines's tenure. This did not deter Hines from his mission to establish the identity of the national Church, seen through the office of the Presiding Bishop, as separate and apart from that of the individual dioceses which comprised its members. He formed a firm conviction that he was correct in pursuing this goal because he saw himself as setting a prophetic example for the rest of the Church to follow. In the words of his obituary in the New York Times, Hines "never wavered in his conviction that the church had to take an uncompromising stand for the poor and defenseless and serve as an inspiration for others to do so." 

The social justice programs of the national church shifted in focus, but not in zeal or enthusiasm, under the leadership of Hines's successor, Bishop John Maury Allin (1974-85). Hailing from Mississippi, Bishop Allin was strongly identified with the civil rights cause through his locally unpopular efforts to rebuild more than 100 black churches that had been firebombed by white racists. But four years after his election, he offered to resign over the ordination of women to the priesthood, which had been voted by General Convention in 1976. He devoutly believed, he said in a 1977 speech, that women could no more become priests "than they can become fathers or husbands." His offer was refused, and he went on to lead Venture in Mission, a drive to increase diocesan missionary work that eventually raised some $150 million for that purpose.

Three bishops have succeeded to the presiding post since Bishop Allin: Edmond Browning (1986-1997), Frank Griswold III (1998-2006), and the current incumbent, Katharine Jefferts Schori (2007-  ). The term of the first is remembered for the embezzlement scandal of Ellen Cooke, the national church's treasurer, whom Bishop Browning had avidly advanced and supported, and eventually protected, from those who tried to call her to account. The resulting adverse publicity again led to a substantial decline in diocesan contributions to the national budget, causing another reduction in staff. But as William Swatos points out (ibid., at 208-09), the office of the Presiding Bishop, rather than General Convention, still called the shots:

In both the Cooke and Hines cases, however, brakes were applied. They came not in the first instance from the votes of General Convention, but from the "green vote" (greenbacks from the grass roots): dioceses not paying their quota of national church (i.e., 815) support. . . . Two major reductions in staff have been taken in the last fifty years: one in the Hines era, the other (really in two steps) in the Browning era. The green vote, not the "priorities of General Convention," has determined these. Only after the necessary accommodations were made to the crises did General Convention respond . . . . Nevertheless, even here we can see the continued power of the PB, since the PB determines, directly or indirectly, who will go and who will stay among the staff, hence what priorities and constituencies are ultimately served---and in what ways. . . .

Nothing has changed since, except that the Presiding Bishop has grown even more powerful in the national church. However, the increase in that power has been at the expense of the role and authority of the Presiding Bishop as a primate in the Anglican Communion. As the inconsistency of Presiding Bishop Griswold demonstrated following the election of V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire---when Griswold acting as a primate joined in the communique warning The Episcopal Church not to proceed with his consecration, and then Griswold as Presiding Bishop proceeded to officiate at Bishop Robinson's consecration, the two roles have now become impossible for the same person to fill, as this rather lame statement demonstrates. The reason is that with the consecration of Bishop Robinson, The Episcopal Church placed itself at odds with the Anglican Communion.

With that development, it became inevitable that the Presiding Bishop would be at odds with some of the Episcopal dioceses as well, because given a choice between gay rights activism and the Anglican Communion, those dioceses had no difficulty in deciding on their allegiance, particularly given the support for the Communion's position in Holy Scripture. Presiding Bishop Griswold recognized the inherent inability of one in the activist vanguard to induce allegiance by any methods other than setting what he saw as a good example, and wisely announced that he would leave it to the individual dioceses to deal with the dissenting parishes in their ranks. Katharine Jefferts Schori, however, is a Presiding Bishop from a different mold: like Bishop Hines before her, she sees herself as having inherited the role of bearing the torch for the cause of social justice. In that role, she is determined to take whatever steps are necessary to lead the Church into the path she views it as having prophetically claimed for itself, regardless of what Holy Scripture says (or perhaps, if Scripture is interpreted properly under post-modern criteria, in light of what it "says or does not say"). 

Viewing the full trajectory of the office of Presiding Bishop from the history sketched above, one is struck by its metamorphosis from presiding over the Church's assemblies into a role of enforcing the social justice norms as adopted by Church activists. As I noted in the previous paragraph, this transformation has placed Bishop Jefferts Schori at odds with many of her fellow primates in the Anglican Communion---a stance which will apparently become even more adverse once the draft Anglican Covenant is released for approval in May of next year.  

Under Bishop Jefferts Schori, this role of enforcement has taken on a priority of its own, even at the expense of the canons supposedly being enforced. As any regular peruser of this site will know, I am at constant pains to point out, to all and sundry, the most recent and egregious violations of the canons by our Presiding Bishop (or as I have opted to call her on occasion, following her particularly outrageous and cowardly "deposition" of Bishop Duncan, the "Chief Kaitiff"). I submit that the inevitable consequence of this defiling of the canons by our current Presiding Bishop will be a decline in respect for them, as well as (paradoxically) an ever-increasing reliance upon their supposed power to curb dissent. (There is really no paradox here. The more the canons are twisted to use as tools to stifle dissent, the more they are disrespected as canons; and then the more easily they can be twisted.) And such an abuse of their function will, over time, erode the Church's moral authority, with the result that it will end up being neither episcopal, nor a church. When that day arrives, those who are then in power will, like Nero, be too drunk with it to perceive that they have put the torch to their own abode.

It is a modern-day tragedy that The Episcopal Church, with its devout and firmly-principled Anglican beginnings as detailed in this and my previous post, and with a healthy aversion to the excesses of autocratic rule, should succumb after 220 years to that which it most feared in the first place: the tyranny of a ruling figure. Listen again to the common sense of Loren Mead, expressed in the memoir cited earlier:

I admit I'm one who still wonders when and how what I used to know as the Presiding Bishop got re-named a "Primate." I come from a diocese that once went 20 years without a bishop, then had a bishop who once went 7 years without conducting a confirmation service. (This was reported by a subsequent bishop of South Carolina, a historian, who somewhat quizzically commented on the lapse as "for reasons that seemed appropriate to him.") We were a diocese that tended to think of cathedrals as vaguely Popish, or, perhaps equally bad, "European." I come from the branch of the Episcopal Church that knows that our constitution was not shaped by the federal Constitution (the way all the confirmation classes insist), but by the form of government the United States had when the Church constitution was produced: "The Articles of Confederation." So our constitution doesn't really have an executive branch (or president); its focus is in legislative authority that is bicameral − with only vestigial executive and afterthought judicial powers, and no provision for a president or for "national" taxation or rules. So we provided for a presiding officer for each of our legislative branches, but the presiding bishop has no authority in any diocese, and can only act in a diocese by the authority of the diocesan bishop.

There was no intent by the founders of this Church to create a Supreme Executive. But that is what we have, through indifference over the years, brought into being. It has now grown into a lawless monstrosity that is bound by no canonical restraints, and that will, I predict, be TEC's undoing. My next post will look at the almost irrelevant role that General Convention has taken on in recent years as a consequence of its deference to the Supreme Executive.

  

The Church of Enablers

With 100% of the 25,423 precincts having reported their results, and only provisional and some late absentee ballots remaining to be counted, California's Secretary of State reports early this morning that Proposition 8, which overturned the 4-3 decision by the California Supreme Court to allow same-sex couples to marry, is carrying the entire State by a margin of 52.5% to 47.5%.

This includes the County of Los Angeles, where the margin was closer---50.4% to 49.6%, as well as the County of Santa Barbara, which voted against the measure by a margin of some 8,156 votes (46.9% Yes, 53.1% No). And it includes the following other counties, which are all part of the Diocese of Los Angeles as well:

Orange 57.3% Yes 42.7% No

San Bernardino 67.1% Yes 38.3% No

Ventura 53.3% Yes 46.7% No

Riverside 64.3% Yes 35.7% No

Only a small slice of the northwestern part of Riverside County is in the Diocese of Los Angeles, but it includes the city of Riverside itself (the remainder is in the Diocese of San Diego). So while it is not possible to break down the votes from Riverside that represent just the portion of the County that is in the Diocese of Los Angeles, it is a fair assumption that the "No" votes were spread throughout the County, and not concentrated just in the City of Riverside. The City represents approximately 15% of the County's population (approximately 300,000 out of a population of 2,000,000). And if one totals all of the Yes and No votes from each of the Counties comprising the Diocese (including 15% of the votes from Riverside County), one obtains this result:

Diocese of Los Angeles

Yes 2,348,826 (53.8%)

No 2,017,391 (46.7%)

Does The Episcopal Church itself reflect the sentiment of the population in which it finds itself? Listen to its Bishop, Jon J. Bruno, in a statement issued yesterday:

I call upon Californians who supported Proposition 8 to make an honest and dedicated effort to learn more about the lives and experiences of lesbian and gay humanity whose constitutional rights are unfairly targeted by this measure. Look carefully at scriptural interpretations, and remember that the Bible was once used to justify slavery, among other forms of oppression.

It is important that we understand that we are a state that lives with freedom of religion – and freedom from religious oppression.

In my view, and in that of many Episcopalians, Proposition 8 is a lamentable expression of fear-based discrimination that attempts to deny the constitutional rights of some Californians on the basis of sexual orientation. It is only a matter of time before its narrow constraints are ultimately nullified by the courts and our citizens’ own increasing knowledge about the diversity of God’s creation.

In other words, for Bishop Bruno and the Episcopalians for whom he speaks, the enactment of a constitutional amendment, required as the consequence of a decision by an activist but bare majority of the California Supreme Court, to preserve the traditional Christian definition of marriage (see the Book of Common Prayer), is nothing more than "religious oppression."

Let me ask the good Bishop: Was it an act of "religious oppression" for the Church to adopt the Book of Common Prayer in 1789, and again in 1792, with its traditional definition of marriage, and to maintain that definition through today? If so, then why do you remain a member of it?

We have here a Bishop of the Church going even farther than he and four others did in September, when they all joined in a statement denouncing Proposition 8 on civil (but not religious) grounds. I pointed out in this post the hypocrisy of Bishops using their official religious titles and status to make a statement on a proposition of civil law. But now Bishop Bruno has made clear what he did not in the earlier statement: The Episcopal Church is engaging in "religious oppression" by holding on to the traditional definition of marriage, and the passage of a civil amendment constitutes a further act of "religious oppression" by those who supported it. This is simply beyond the pale, and calls the Church into undeserved opprobrium. Bishop Bruno has vilified his own Church. So I ask him again: If that is how you really feel, why do you remain a member?

With the promulgation of such an outrageous statement, Bishop Bruno and those Episcopalians who think and speak as he does are turning the Church into a Church of Enablers. They are using the Church to provide comfort and support to the group of homosexuals who see themselves as "victims" of yet one more act of "discrimination." And in doing so, as the numbers above show plainly, the Diocese of Los Angeles is sacrificing its mission to minister to all of its constituents in favor of a misguided effort to be seen as "inclusive" by jettisoning its Scripture and liturgy. (In his statement quoted above, Bishop Bruno equates an interpretation of the Bible that condemns homosexual acts with the interpretations of it used once to justify slavery. As William J. Webb has comprehensively shown, this is an utterly false analogy.)

This is tragic, because maintaining the traditional definition of what marriage is cannot be discriminatory, any more than is maintaining a definition of when a child becomes an adult. The latter law "discriminates" against those who are 17 and under only in the sense that a line has to be drawn, and one group will fall on one side of that line, and the rest will fall on the other side. But that is not true discrimination---the act of singling out a group of people for invidious treatment.

Similarly, for centuries, to be considered "married" has also involved the drawing of a line: between those couples who made certain vows and commitments, and those who had not. The line had nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the husband or the wife: as +Gene Robinson has showed us, homosexuals were free to enter into the state of marriage also.

But now a group comes along who wants to enlarge---or more accurately, change---the definition of marriage to throw out the sex of the partners as a defining factor, in order to make marriage no longer a privileged status granted to qualified couples, but instead a "fundamental right" belonging to an individual, regardless of sex or sexual orientation. The parallel to my minority/adult example would be as though a group came along who wanted to define "adulthood" by an irrelevant factor such as the completion of a certain grade of education, or by the growth of pubic hair. Yes, the law providing that a minor becomes an adult on turning 18 can be said to "discriminate" against those who graduate from high school earlier because of their abilities, but only if those high-achievers see themselves as "victims" of the "discrimination."

Homosexuals in California admit that their movement to achieve "equal status" in their relationships was all about the rights which they see as flowing from marriage, such as the right to visit a spouse in the hospital, and to receive the spouse's pension benefits on the latter's death. But they have been given those rights in California already---the only thing they have not been "given" is the label of "marriage" for their relationships. And that is no more of an act of "discrimination", as I say, than is defining an adult as someone who has turned 18.

For marriage is not an institution defined by the sexual orientation of the partners; as I said, one who is homosexual is as free to marry a partner of the opposite sex as is anyone else. Marriage does define itself by the sex of the partners, and it has always done so for a sufficient reason: because one of the results of marriage can be the birth of children, marriage provides those children with a guaranteed lineage and rights of inheritance. (That the children adopted by gay couples now have the same rights in California does not logically require us to alter the traditional definition of "marriage". Since no discrimination is occurring in the law, then why suddenly decree that marriage must be redefined to accommodate the legal developments of the early twenty-first century, after it has stood for that many centuries already?)

The "right" to marry is technically not a right at all, in the Hohfeldian sense of that word. As Professor Hohfeld's analysis showed, a "right" is the correlative of a "duty"---if I have a "right", you have the corresponding "duty" to respect and honor my right. But "alienation of affection" is no longer recognized as an actionable wrong in the law: that is, if I am engaged to marry Miss Jones and you steal her away from me, I have no right to sue you. So I have no legal "right" to marry any particular person, but I cannot be considered married until I have chosen a particular person (with their consent) and married them. In exactly the same way, I cannot be considered an adult until I have actually turned 18, and I cannot be a legal driver until I have met the qualifications for a driver's license. A "right" in each of those cases cannot be said to arise until the act supposedly secured is over and done with, and the requisite qualifications have been satisfied, so that is no "right" at all.

Instead, marriage itself is a "privilege" in society, in the Hohfeldian sense. A privilege is something the State confers upon you, and its jural opposite, according to Hohfeld, is a "No-Right." Translated for non-lawyers: if some people have the "privilege" of being considered as married in the eyes of the State, the rest of the people who do not qualify for that privilege have no right to claim it. The essence of a privilege is thus "discrimination": adulthood is a privilege, a driver's license is a privilege, and so is a marriage license. But there is no discrimination in any invidious sense; only "discrimination" in the legal sense of drawing a line---which is to say, no discrimination at all, as people commonly mean that term.

So, Bishop Bruno, not only are you spreading and supporting needless calumny about your own Church, but you cannot even analyze the most basic aspect of what is wrong with your entire position in this matter. As Cranmer would say: "His Grace suggests you take up sports announcing."

[UPDATE 11/05/2008: It is not just Bishop Bruno who is enabling those who see themselves as "victims" in this common-sense refusal to expand a traditional and well-defined term so that it would lose all meaning. Check the left-wing bloggers whose posts are discussed (but thankfully not linked) here. Not one of them understands the legal difference between a "right" and a "privilege"---or even cares that they don't, for that matter. They are too busy turning their elitist scorn against the voters whom they have decided to blame for "taking away" their so-called "right." Rather than trade new insults for theirs, however, the proper Christian response is to pray for the clarity that will lighten their hearts. Like Hans Christian Andersen's Ugly Duckling, there are none so anguished as those who think they have to be that which they cannot be, until they learn to love what they are.]

What Republicans Can Do with Their Yard Signs Today

(Hat-tip: Steven Hayward, NoLeftTurns)

Vote Early, and Often---Not Just in Chicago

The first part of the title of this post has been variously attributed to Al Capone or Richard J. Daley, but it most likely came from an earlier Chicago mayor, William Hale Thompson. The point is, all three of them came from the world of Chicago politics.

And now it looks as though Chicago-style voting is spreading to the rest of the country in this election. Finally, we have some genuine journalism from the media:

ATLANTA -- Georgia's Secretary of State has launched a full investigation and may seek criminal charges against three Georgia men who appear to have early-voted twice.“This is extraordinarily disturbing," said Secretary of State Karen Handel.A team of investigative journalists from WSB-TV in Atlanta, WFTV in Orlando and WFTS in Tampa and WCPO in Cincinnati compared Georgia's voter rolls with those in Florida and Ohio and found more than 100,000 people who appear to be registered to vote in more than one state, with no government oversight to catch it.

Imagine that! The TV stations had the idea of collaborating across State lines to see whether voter fraud was possibly occurring. And having found it, they are surprised to learn that neither the local nor the federal governments are equipped to prevent it from happening. The instances they uncovered with just a little checking are telling:

WSB-TV Channel 2 tried to find Thomas Habel at the home where he's registered to vote in Hartwell, Georgia, but was unable to locate him.That’s because he was spending time at his other home in Marco Island, Florida. Before he left for the Sunshine State, according Georgia's Secretary of State, Habel early-voted at the Hart County elections office. Chief registrar Elizabeth Forbes says she knows Habel and saw him cast his ballot. She even gave him a sticker. State records confirm Habel voting on October 1, 2008, but Florida records show him voting there on October 25."Oh, then that's not good," said Forbes when she saw both voting records with Habel’s name on them. Contacted at his Florida home Habel admitted voting in Florida at the Marco Island library, but says he doesn't recall voting in Georgia. "Somebody would remember if they voted twice,” Habel insisted. “I went and got a ballot for my wife she called me and said she forgot to vote, she was down there and I went in there and I signed for it." The registrar confirms Habel did that, too. His wife has already mailed in her Georgia absentee vote.

A check of Georgia's master voter rolls revealed more than 42,000 people who also appear to be registered in Florida. WSB-TV Channel 2 found three who appear to have double voted, which is a felony.

And what does another double-registered voter have to say? (Hint: think Casablanca.)

"Shocking, it's really shocking,” said voter Kelley Johnson. “I wouldn't think to do something like that." But Johnson could vote in two states. The college student has an absentee ballot from DeKalb County, even though she voted in Daytona Beach, Florida. "Two days after I voted, my absentee ballot came in the mail,” explained Johnson. “I was just shocked, it had my little sticker, ‘I'm a Georgia voter’ on there."

Another voter swears she is too conscientious to exploit the situation---she just wanted to vote in a State where her ballot would actually count:

WSB-TV Channel 2 found eight people who voted in Florida and received absentee ballots from Georgia. Another three voters who cast ballots in Ohio could have voted in Georgia. "Because Ohio's a swing state, I'm not from here, I'm from Atlanta, so I re-registered in Ohio so we could possibly have a chance," admitted Lauren Arnone. Arnone received her Cobb County ballot by mail, but vowed not to use it, even though she could. "Something should be fixed about this because this can sway an election," said Arnone.

Really, do you think so, Lauren? Well, listen to what officials say: they can do nothing about it if it's not brought to their attention. Here is Georgia's Secretary of State:

Georgia Secretary of State Handel agrees. "Does our system just trust that people won't vote twice?” asked Handel. “From the federal level, yes pretty much." There is no federal database to track voter registration and no laws obligating voters to notify their old state when they register in a new one. “It's an extremely high potential for (voter fraud),” said Handel. But she said right now the states have no capacity to compare their lists. "You vote where you live,” said Handel. “You don't get to pick and choose based on what is a battleground state, so that's very disturbing and we will be looking at every single name on that list."

Thanks to the genuine efforts of the media, the Secretaries of State in Georgia, Florida and Ohio are now on the case:

"It's very easy isn't it? You could potentially vote in, if we had worked it we could have voted in many places many times probably," said Aaron Bashore, who received two ballots. People who simply got ballots in both places have not committed a crime, but Handel says voters like Tom Habel should beware. "Anyone who votes twice is undermining the core of our democratic process that is serious and we will pursue this to the fullest extent," said Handel.

For the larger list of 112,000 voters, WSB-TV Channel 2 was only able to verify their first, middle and last name and dates of birth; some of them could turn out to be different people with the exact same information. The Secretaries of State can match them by social security number and if they wait until after the election, they will have a complete list of how many of them voted and how many times.

This has the potential of becoming a much bigger story. It is the direct consequence of the recent tendency to stretch out the voting period, which allows "early voting" in some States up to forty-five days before Election Day. It will be noteworthy to see whether TV stations and news media in other States pick up on this and begin to do their jobs, instead of just being echo chambers. Chicago, we're on to you! (The fact we're onto them doesn't cut any mustard with the major media, however. For an example of a CNN reporter exposing in a live interview the voting fraud that occurred in Philadelphia and then condoning it with an incredible "That's OK," be sure to see this video.)

Meanwhile, don't join the "silent majority"---which means, regardless of what you may read, see, or hear in the media in the next few hours until all the polls close, go and vote!

"Know the Enemy": Episcopal Beginnings

According to the legendary pre-Christian Chinese scholar of war Sun-Tzu,

If you know the enemy and know yourself,
you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not your enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle.

In deference to the philosophy thus expressed, what I propose to do in this and succeeding posts is to describe the current enemy of those who, like me, grew up in the Episcopal church in our youth and now can scarcely recognize what it is to which we in name, at any rate, "belong." (If you cannot accept the term "enemy" as descriptive, then you will learn nothing of use to you here. I suggest that you go to Mark Harris' website, because he does about as good a job as is possible to represent what TEC is doing today.)

But this series of posts is not just for those of us who grew up in the Episcopal church. (Notice, please, the lack of capitals. When I write "the Episcopal church", with only one capital letter, I mean to designate the historical church in which those of us who go back that far received our religious training and education. When I wish to refer to the so-called "Episcopal Church" as it is currently led and governed, I will always use capitals, thus: "The Episcopal Church", or just "TEC".) It is intended for all those who would seek to understand just what TEC is, how it became that way, and what, if anything, can be done about it.

The regrettable truth of this series of posts is that those who govern The Episcopal Church are now the avowed enemy of all those who seek to respect and honor its traditions. Under their leadership and direction, it has become, to be blunt, an apostate Church. And in light of Sun Tzu's maxim, it were well that we who still identify ourselves with the traditions of the old Episcopal church---whether we remain in it or not---should "know the enemy."

So, here we go. What now calls itself The Episcopal Church started out in America as a branch of the Church of England located specifically in Jamestown, Virginia, following the settlement established there in 1607. The settlers were English, and they brought with them the traditions and rites of the Church of England.

In succeeding years, representatives of other sects in Europe landed in America and founded their own churches. But the "Church of England" established itself thoroughly in Virginia and Maryland, before spreading to other colonies who were likewise settled by emigrants from England. Because it was the "established", or State, church in England, it likewise became the official church in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the lower four counties of New York. Additional "Anglican" churches were established in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania (but were not recognized as State churches in those colonies), so that by 1700, there were more than a hundred such parishes in toto whose property was part of the Church of England in the colonies.

At no time, throughout its 170-year colonial period, did the Church of England seek to establish an episcopate in America. Instead, the Bishop of London was acknowledged as the titular ecclesiastical authority of the colonial Anglican churches, even though the actual authority he exercised over individual parishes was minimal. (The Bishop, through an appointed Commissary, established an ecclesiastical court for the disciplining of clergy in Virginia in 1727. However, the appointment ended with the death of that Bishop in 1748, and his successor refused to renew the authority. The result was, as one historian states, that "[a] rector of a parish, no matter how vile a habit he fell into, could not be tried and forced out by a civil court.") Most of the church-planting in the colonies outside of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas occurred as a result of the efforts of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ("SPG"), founded in London in 1701.

The Revolutionary War changed all this. The "Anglican Church" in America went into limbo---as an established church, it had no self-governing structure, but the State legislatures quickly moved to abolish the taxes that supported it, and left the rectors to survive on their own, from what they could produce on their glebes, and collect from their parishioners. Hundreds of clergy, loyal to the Church and their King, left for places like Nova Scotia, or returned to England. Those remaining began to consider what independence would mean for the Church. In Maryland on November 9, 1780, there was a conference attended by three clergy and twenty-four laity, at which it was resolved that "the Church formerly known in the Province as the Church of England should now be called the Protestant Episcopal Church." However, the clergy and the laity by themselves were powerless to effect change. It took another act of the respective legislatures first to disestablish the Church as a State Church, and then to give it the right to organize on its own. (As one example, the Anglican Church of Virginia was finally disestablished, and the "Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia" was incorporated, by two separate acts of the Virginia legislature in December 1784. Its properties had earlier been recognized as belonging to it by virtue of the Revolution, but a combination of Baptists and French-Revolution-admiring deists, who came to power in the Legislature in 1799, and again in 1802, voted to seize and sell all those properties---including prayer books, altar furnishings, Bibles and parish records! The Episcopal Church of Virginia went into a state of dormancy from which it did not recover for many years, while in the other States the Churches escaped a similar fate.)

With no Church of England in the colonies any more, there were also no bishops with jurisdiction. Because the Bishop of London had been such a distant figure, the Anglican churches in the colonies had grown accustomed to existing under their own authority for almost two hundred years. After the Revolution, bishops were identified in the popular mind as agents of the overthrown King, and there was considerable resistance among the laity to creating any. The first step to establish an episcopal authority in the new republic came soon after the victory in Yorktown in 1783, when ten of the (still Anglican loyalist) clergy in Connecticut met in secret to elect Samuel Seabury, who had served as a chaplain to the British troops, as their bishop (he was not their first, but second, choice). However, Seabury could not be consecrated by bishops of the Church of England because of an Act of Parliament which required that all bishops consecrated in England swear an oath of loyalty to the Crown. After waiting a year for the laws to be changed, he went to Scotland, where in November 1784 three non-juring bishops (who required no oath of loyalty to the Crown) agreed to consecrate him.

Meanwhile, the various Episcopal churches in several States organized dioceses and sent their elected representatives to a convention called in 1785 to establish a new national Church. One Church historiographer, the Rev. G. MacLaren Brydon, describes the result as follows:

The Anglican Church had grown strong in America without the presence of Bishops. And, as dioceses organized in the several States, it was very clearly shown that they desired to conserve, in their new life as a national church, all the methods and ways of procedure which had made their Church strong. For that reason, before there was a Bishop in America (except Bishop Samuel Seabury of Scottish consecration), the dioceses and their newly organized General Convention established a government in which representatives of the laity became a component part of all legislation concerning the doctrine, discipline and worship of their Church. They gave also to the Order of the Laity the right to elect the rectors of their parishes, and to take as full a share as the clergy in the election of their Bishops.

That is the one great distinctive feature of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and it has proven a tremendously important step forward in the development of the Anglican Communion throughout the world.

. . .

It is historic fact that in both Maryland and Virginia the clergy assembled and asked that the organization of the Diocese and the election of their Bishops be placed in the hands of the clergy. And in both Maryland and Virginia the legislature of the State answered with an emphatic NO. In each State the Episcopal Church was organized by the legislature, through acts of incorporation which gave to the laity all of the powers that they had learned to use during the Colonial period. This became also the rule of General Convention, adopted for the whole national Church.

Following further appeals not to lose the "Anglican" churches in America, Parliament enabled the Church of England to consecrate other foreign bishops without the necessity of their swearing allegiance to the Crown. The newly established General Convention, having consulted with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and having received their approval to the procedure, ratified the elections of William White in Pennsylvania, Samuel Provoost in New York, and David Griffith in Virginia to be bishops, and gave them their credentials to present to the Archbishops for consecration. Griffith, however, was unable to come up with the funds to go to England, and so the other two were consecrated there without him in 1785. (The importance which the Church of England placed on these consecrations may be seen from the fact that both English Archbishops participated in the laying on of hands, together with the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Peterborough.)

This gave America a total of three bishops (counting Seabury), sufficient to consecrate all further successors, but there was political opposition in England to her relying on Seabury's Scottish consecration, and in addition Bishop Provoost (who at one point had borne arms against the British) despised Bishop Seabury for his loyalist past, so Griffith was not consecrated by his colleagues. An episcopal stalemate ensued while everyone waited on Virginia to send its candidate to England.

Conditions under the Articles of Confederation were not conducive to monetary stability, and after waiting three more years, Griffith still had been unable to raise the necessary funds to purchase his passage. At the General Convention of the Church in Philadelphia in 1789, he resigned his election, and died shortly thereafter. After the United States Constitution came into effect later that year, the monetary base stabilized under the new national government, with the brilliant Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury. In May 1790, Virginia elected as its bishop the Rev. James Madison, president of William and Mary College and a second cousin of the future fourth President of the United States; he was consecrated in England the following September.

America's first bishop to be consecrated on its own soil was the Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Claggett, elected from Maryland in 1792. (For the occasion, which was the second triennial gathering of General Convention in New York under the new Episcopal Constitution adopted in 1789, Bishop Provoost managed to bury the hatchet, and deigned to join the ceremony along with Bishop Seabury.) Ever since, the Episcopal church in America has been on its own with regard to consecrations of bishops, and virtually all of its clergy trace a dual line of apostolic succession: from the Church of England via Bishops White, Provoost, Madison, and Claggett, and from the Church of Scotland via Bishops Seabury and (again) Claggett.

As noted above, the various State dioceses met first together in 1785, but some of the representatives still lacked authority to commit to anything on behalf of the Church in their States. They met again in 1786 and adopted a tentative Constitution which they proposed for final approval at the next triennial meeting scheduled for 1789. Problems continued in that the New England states, led by Bishop Seabury, held back from attending; the Bishop took offense at an entry in the minutes of the 1786 convention which to him appeared to question the validity of his consecration. At the meeting in August 1789, the Convention adopted unanimously a resolution affirming the validity of Bishop Seabury's consecration, and adjourned until the end of September to meet with representatives from the New England States, including Bishop Seabury, for the purpose of agreeing on a permanent Constitution.

Drafted by lawyers well versed in their art, as Mark McCall demonstrates, the Constitution was deliberately framed to maintain the independence and autonomy of each separate diocese, organized within the boundaries of each of the thirteen original States. (An early version, incorporating the mostly minor changes made through 1823, can be viewed online here.)

Article I of the 1789 Constitution establishes a General Convention, which is to meet every three years. Article II provides for a vote in General Convention by orders, and then adds this provision:

And if, through the neglect of the Convention or any of the Churches which shall have adopted, or may hereafter adopt this Constitution, no deputies, either lay or clerical, should attend at any General Convention, the Church in such State shall nevertheless be bound by the acts of such Convention.

Church historians such as Dr. Joan Gundersen have contended that this provision of the 1789 Constitution functions as a sort of Supremacy Clause, making dioceses subject to whatever canons are passed in General Convention. Such a statement, however, confuses a rule of applicability with a rule of priority. (For details, see Mr. McCall's response to Dr. Gundersen.) The language in any event was dropped from the Constitution in the comprehensive revision of 1901, "presumably," say Church constitutional authorities Messrs. White & Dykman, "because the time when it had any useful application had long since passed."

Article III of the first Constitution, as adopted in October 1789 and providing for a "House of Bishops" to meet whenever "three or more" could assemble, was the result of a compromise between the States which had theretofore met, led by Bishop William White, and the New England States, led by Bishop Seabury. The latter had objected to making the House of Bishops a "house of revision" only, with no power to originate legislation, and they also wanted the House of Bishops to have the power to veto legislation passed by the House of Deputies. The compromise struck was to give the Bishops the right to originate legislation, and to require a four-fifths vote by the House of Deputies to override any veto by the House of Bishops. (In 1808, this requirement was deleted, and the language changed to read as in the online version linked earlier, by which the Bishops had three days within which to object to an act by the Deputies, "and in failure thereof, it shall have the operation of a law.")

Article IV of the 1789 Constitution provided that Bishops were to be elected in each State "agreeably to such rules as shall be fixed by the Convention of that State," and continued: "every Bishop of this Church shall confine the exercise of his Episcopal office to his proper diocese or district, unless requested to ordain, or confirm, or perform any other act of the Episcopal office, by any Church destitute of a Bishop."

Article V provided for new members: "A Protestant Episcopal Church in any of the United States, not now represented, may, at any time hereafter, be admitted, on acceding to this Constitution." Article VI provided for the trial of clergy and bishops in accordance with rules adopted by each State, and Article VII set forth the requirements for ordination, including a subscription to the following oath: "I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God, and to contain all things necessary for salvation: and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States."

Article VIII made provision for the adoption of a Book of Common Prayer, and Article IX specified that Constitutional amendments would require passage at two successive triennial conventions. And that was it---that was the Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church that served it (with very few subsequent changes, apart from the manner of forming new dioceses provided in Article V) for the first 112 years of its existence. (To see the subsequent changes, take a look at this online version of the Constitution as it existed in 1878.)

We are now in a position to ask: just what form of organization was created upon adoption of the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1789? Under the common law existing at the time, there was formed what was known as an "unincorporated association of Churches in the several States organized into dioceses." That is, the various Episcopal Churches of each separate State came together and associated in a body called General Convention, which met once every three years, and to which they elected their respective deputies. Such an association was completely voluntary, and under the common law of associations, members were free to join or depart as they chose, at any time. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, the Southern dioceses did depart, in order to form a new unincorporated association known as the "Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America." When that association broke up after the South's defeat, the dioceses who had been its members (with one exception---the Confederate diocese of Arkansas reverted to a missionary district status for a while) rejoined the association of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. These acts of joining and leaving, and joining again, are perfectly illustrative of the voluntary nature of an unincorporated association.

I am not being partisan, or legally biased, in setting out this view. I admit that it runs greatly at odds with the view of those who contend that membership in The Episcopal Church is permanent and unalterable, or as the saying has it, "People can leave the Church, but not dioceses or parishes." Since there was no issue made of the departures in 1861, one has to wonder what has changed in the interim that would make a diocese's departure the subject of a legal contest now. As another author puts it:

Although claims are often made , for example, that the Constitution of the Episcopal Church is "modeled" on that of the United States, in fact it is less like the Constitution than like the Articles of Confederation. Dioceses accede to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, and in so doing align themselves with General Convention, but in theory any diocese may withdraw from this union. Today there would probably be legal challenges, particularly regarding property rights, the relative success or failure of which would likely be determined by secular courts on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, the 1998 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion's bishops again reaffirmed the integrity of diocesan boundaries, hence the centrality of the diocese to the church's characteristic "disbursed authority."

(William H. Swatos, Jr., "A Primacy of Systems", p. 203, in D. Roozen and J. Nieman, eds., Church, Identity and Change [Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005] [footnotes omitted]. In one of the footnotes I have omitted, Swatos points out that the phrase "disbursed authority" comes from an address to the 1998 Lambeth Conference by one of the Anglican Communion's most distinguished experts on canon law, Edward Norman [who expanded on the lecture in his book, Anglican Difficulties: a New Syllabus of Errors].)

This completes my survey of the nature of The Episcopal Church as determined by its beginnings. In subsequent posts in this series, I will examine more of its structure and polity, with a view to tracing the enormous recent accretions of power in the office of the Presiding Bishop.