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"But It Shall Not Be So Among You": Some Reflections Towards the Reception of the Windsor Report within ECUSA

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Grieb, A Katherine

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It is these additional elements that, ironically, function to call into question the vision described by the biblical/theological sections of the Report. Having painted a powerful picture of an Anglican Communion inhabiting a richly furnished ecclesial tradition of lively engagement with the living Word of God, through biblical study and theological reflection, the Windsor Report challenges the provinces that seem to be putting the Anglican Communion at risk to self-discernment and decision: Is the future of the Anglican Communion worth some temporary sacrifice of apparent self-interest so that genuine conversation and listening can occur? The argument is demonstratively persuasive. It reminds us who we are, whose we are, what the church is about, what the martyrs died for, what we want as an inheritance for our children.

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But the Windsor Report does not seem to trust the power of its own witness. It cannot or will not confess the real difficulties the church has had with women's ordination at the same time it documents the progress towards unity that has in fact been won. It cannot or will not admit that it was precisely the theological importance (not the unimportance) of the current issues that have caused ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to take an unpopular stand. And it cannot or will not allow the church to go on as if the more powerful and more truthful arguments would prevail by persuasion and by mutual self-submission to the compelling biblical/theological vision it describes so well. Instead, it seems to be using the proposed moratorium to rebuild its fortifications and to hire more sharpshooters.

If law looks primarily or only at the four corners of a document, then it may be the role of equity in this context to notice some other aspects of the conversation leading up to and following from the Windsor Report to raise some questions not raised by the Report itself. One such issue is the widespread perception of the arrogance of the United States. The question the Report asks ECUSA, put less diplomatically, is something like, "Are you aware that you are coming across as so arrogant that the best spin we can put on your actions is that you didn't have any idea what you were doing?" While not many of the provinces of the Anglican Communion are national churches in the way that England is, there is a closer relationship between church and state in many of them than exists in the United States. ECUSA would have had more credibility with the rest of the Anglican Communion if the church had been more outspoken in its opposition to the foreign military, economic, and environmental policies so damaging to their nations and their people. There is understandable confusion about our arrogance if ECUSA is seen as a wing of the government that takes whatever it wants and is accountable to no one.

"But It Shall Not Be So Among You": Some Reflections Towards the Reception of the Windsor Report within ECUSA

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Grieb, A Katherine

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