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After Dromantine
Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Sumner, George
The Nature of the Windsor Report's Answer
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In part to counter such arguments, let us consider the specifics of the Windsor Reports proposal. First of all, it gives full scope to the rightful claim of national churches to autonomy. The Report reiterates that individual churches can decide their own direction, though it rightly insists that they cannot thereupon demand that their sibling churches remain in communion. Second, the Report insists that its purpose is to repair and preserve communion, not to punish its violation. It is an exercise in "restorative justice"; as such it offers a patient and gradated process. Third, it leaves plenteous room for continued debate and diverse private opinion about the issue. It cleaves stringently to its mandate of preserving unity, carefully stating that Anglicanism does have a teaching on the topic of human sexuality. Whether this could ever be changed is an open question, but until such time as a new consensus emerges, the teaching stands. Fourthly, it is evenhanded in cautioning both liberals and conservatives whose acts make it harder to maintain unity in teaching. Fifthly, both the Report and the Primates' Meeting display the dispersed authority distinctive in Anglican accounts and called for in the Virginia Report and the influential ecclesiological proposals of Stephen Sykes. In sum, the Windsor Report shows a lightness of touch, a tendency to "treat people like adults,"7 and a balance which are admirable.
For all that, the Windsor Report is upsetting to many in the Anglican world, simply because it is an act of judgment and discernment. It commits an act of doctrinal authority, transgressing the assumptions of relativism. For example, the Report states clearly that the case of homosexuality is different from that of women's ordination, not fitting in some vague category such as "change" or "context." Indeed, evangelical African Anglicans make this discrimination as well, for though they sometimes object to the ordination of women, they have never raised the same sort of hue and cry. The Windsor Report is implicitly an act of thinking with the tradition which can differentiate the weight of different issues.
It is noteworthy that Canadian Anglicans asked their Primate's Theological Commission to figure out whether the question of samesex unions was one of doctrine (requiring a single nationwide decision with higher requirements) or of "local option" to be decided by dioceses. The notion of "local option" is itself a vivid example of relativism in that it would leave each locale to make up its own practice, and thereby its own teaching, since for Anglicans the former implies the latter. Never mind that the matter coincided with a national political debate about same-sex marriage. Never mind that the matter would involve performative liturgical acts binding couples together for life, changing the rubric of the Prayer Book marriage rite. The question was posed to the commission, recapitulating the key question of modern Anglicanism in the face of relativism. Can we discern something to be our own teaching and take responsibility for its protection or revision? Or will doctrine again serve as a receding horizon? It is to the commission's credit that, in contrast to the Righter decision, the issue was seen rightly to amount to a redefinition of marriage, and hence to be a matter of doctrine requiring national agreement.
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Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »