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Spiritual Context of the Windsor Report, The

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Charleston, Steven

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Over the years, as the church has continued to face one crisis after another, there have been attempts to claim sole ownership of the Spirit. Competing factions within the Christian faith have sought to freeze learning by insisting that all we need to understand has been revealed to us already. The repressive and reactionary history of the church in stifling learning has been the result. The attempt to deny the process of change as an integral part of God's process of creation continues to haunt us.

In ways that are less fearful of change, we have used strategies of discernment that reflect the communal role of the Spirit. We have gathered men and women to seek a shared understanding. The Windsor Report represents this kind of collective intellectual and spiritual process.

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But in what ways does it express discernment?

If we take seriously the communal nature of the Holy Spirit, then we must view the Windsor Report through the many lenses of diversity. Because the Spirit ranges over the whole of the community-lifting up wisdom from every tribe and every nation, speaking in countless voices-then we can only perceive that wisdom if we learn from the experience of us all. As tempting as it may be for us to cling to our own vision of the truth, even if we believe that vision to be divinely sanctioned, we cannot deny the presence of God in the others who may disagree with us.

In this way, the process of discernment commenced by the gift of Jesus makes us take the risk of listening. It means that we must not be concerned with how the Windsor Report "speaks for us" but rather how it "speaks for them." What are the voices to be heard in the Report and what are they trying to say? What are the voices not heard in the Report and why? Unless we can discern the collective wisdom of the whole of our community, we are only hearing the echo of our own voice and assuming it speaks for God.

The learning process of Jesus makes us all students, not teachers. It requires humility, not certainty. Its success is measured by how many people get to be heard and how respectfully they are listened to. The discernment process is not intended to establish truth hut to challenge truth. Discernment is not gained by ending debate, prohibiting discovery, or denying difference, but by trusting in a presence transcendent of human reason alone.

STEVEN CHARLESTON*

* Steven Charleston is President and Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, where he also serves as Professor of Theology. He is the former Bishop of Alaska.

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Spiritual Context of the Windsor Report, The

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Charleston, Steven

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