Spiritual Context of the Windsor Report, The

Charleston, Steven

If the Windsor Report is not only an ecclesiological or theological document, what is it? This article places the Report into both the historic and biblical contexts of Anglican spirituality. In doing so, this essay answers three essential questions about the foundation, function, and future of the Windsor Report. Using scriptural reference points, the article claims a "common ground" that the church can use in developing a meaningful dialogue for reconciliation and unity. Servanthood, forgiveness, and discernment are presented as the three categories for conversation that persons from "any point on the compass" can engage to put the Windsor Report to work on the local parish or diocesan level.

The true context for the Windsor Report is a deep challenge for any Anglican from any point on the compass, either geographic or theological. It is a ground for our shared experience as human beings that is far broader than our cultural attitudes about sexuality. It is a call to courageous self-reflection, careful historical analysis, and difficult cross-cultural dialogue. It is a personal risk that each of us will have to be willing to make.

Two days after the Windsor Report was first released to the public I wrote the words above as part of a study guide I published called "The Middle Way." The purpose of "The Middle Way" was simple. It was my attempt to help people not just react to the Windsor Report, but to reflect on it, to put it into context. Rather than a cause for even more dissension along predictable party lines, I saw the Report as an opportunity for genuine reconciliation. I felt that if we could take the risk to step back from our conventional positions on human sexuality, we could enter into the transformative experience of learning something together. Something about ourselves as Anglicans. Something about the meaning of being a Christian living in an age of conflict and fear.

The purpose of this essay is to offer a meditation on the spiritual context of the Windsor Report. Once again, I invite all of us, whatever our reactions to the Report may be, to reflect deeply on our commitment to reconciliation. To do this, I begin with three very simple questions: Where did the Report come from? How are we trying to use it? Where is it taking us?

In answering these questions, we have an opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on the Windsor Report, but only if we take a risk. The risk is to let go of our individual attitudes about the content of the Report. The reward is to enter into a common vision of the spiritual process surrounding the Report. This conceptual move from content to process is risky because it requires us to take personal responsibility for one another.

In the debate over content, we have our arguments well prepared and documented. We are on firm ground. We know our position on human sexuality, biblical interpretation, and ecclesiological structure. But when it comes to process, we are on much softer ground. Content allows us to draw sharp distinctions between ourselves and others. The spiritual process I will describe does not. We have all been involved in the process. Whether we think of ourselves as conservative, moderate, or liberal, we have all participated in a centuries-old process that has brought us the Windsor Report and that will carry us into our undefined future as a church. While we are stakeholders when it comes to content, we are shareholders when it comes to process.

Content divides us. Process unites us. Even if we are unhappy with the process, suspicious of it, or frustrated by it, still we are together in living through it. While we may never be able to change one another's minds about the content of our individual opinions, we can change how we live together in spite of them. Therefore, even if it is soft ground, process is common ground. We have a place on which to begin building a new understanding with one another. With the three questions above, we also have the tools.

What do these questions sound like if we hear them as questions about process and not content? What do our three questions sound like if we put them into a spiritual context? I believe they sound like the gospel. I believe they reveal a spiritual path we can follow in making the Windsor Report something more than a footnote in our historical struggle. They sound like servanthood, forgiveness, and discernment.

The Context of Servanthood

The process that created the Windsor Report began when a handful of people were walking across country. The people were the first followers of Jesus and the country was Galilee. On that walk, Jesus overheard some of his followers arguing among themselves. He stopped and asked them what they were discussing. They answered that they were debating who among them should be considered the greatest. Jesus answered that question for them and in so doing set in motion a process that continues to this day.

The context for the Windsor Report is the context of servanthood. While individually each one of us may wish we could occupy a place of primacy among others in deciding matters of the faith, the process Jesus created prohibits us from doing so. His injunction that in our relationships we are to be servants of one another and not lords over one another defines the nature of our community.

Historically, of course, we have done everything we can to find loopholes to this process. Through the centuries, we have worked hard at subverting it. We have created infallible hierarchies, confessional constitutions, and charismatic leaders that claim to be the arbiters of sacred truth. Frustrated by the inefficient and egalitarian process of Jesus, we have sought to design our own systems for determining who gets to be the greatest.

On the other hand, some of our strategies have been efforts to stay within the spirit of the process with Jesus, even if we have had to make some adaptations. The conciliar process is a good example. Confronted with disagreement, we have called councils of the church and worked to find consensus. The Windsor Report emerges from this kind of historic compromise.

But in what ways does it express servanthood?

If we seek to process the Windsor Report in this context, then we have to take the risk of asking how it serves those with whom we disagree. Our focus shifts from "How does this document satisfy me?" to "How does it satisfy them?" Making that transition is enormously difficult.

The distinction between lords and servants is often acculturated as the difference between winners and losers. Even in our more benign processes-the church council models that strive for consensus-we subvert servanthood with the politics of winning. On the surface, the function of a church convention or Primates' Meeting is to resolve disputes through group process, but behind the scenes the jockeying for position can be intense. Instinctively, the effort is to win.

Suspending this instinct requires a commitment to servanthood that takes us to a different conceptual place. In the process Jesus embodies there are neither winners nor losers. There are only servants. Consequently, success is not measured by who is on top and who is on bottom, but rather by how well everyone remains together. The servanthood process is not intended to resolve tension, but to maintain tension. Community equilibrium does not depend on resolution, but on reconciliation.

The Context of Forgiveness

The process of reconciliation carried on by the Windsor Report began when a very emotional man wondered how he could coexist with people who made him angry. The man was Peter and the people were his brothers and sisters in discipleship. He asked Jesus about the limits of reconciliation. How long did he have to tolerate the others before he could be justified in walking away from them? Jesus answered his question and in so doing set in motion a process that continues to this day.

The reconciliation sought by the Windsor Report is the process of forgiveness. While each one of us may wish that we could establish limits to our responsibility for remaining in community, the process Jesus creates denies us that option. Abandoning one another is not a choice. However much we may want to draw a line in the sand and say that the others have crossed over it and stepped beyond the pale, the infinite process of God's forgiveness erases that line. It leaves us standing in a continuum of forgiveness with one another that can never end.

Emotionally, of course, we find countless ways to live in denial of that sacred reality. We prepare vast legal briefs of scriptural interpretation and theological opinion to justify our own behavior. Over the centuries, these extremes of our self-righteousness have permitted us to carry out some of the worst atrocities against humanity known to history. Our holy wars, crusades, and pogroms have decimated people in the millions in the name of our religion.

In less volatile ways, we have attempted a bypass around forgiveness by seeking a political resolution to our disagreements. The Windsor Report arises from this impulse. It is the product of a process of arbitration.

But in what ways does it express forgiveness?

If we place the Windsor Report in the context of a forgiveness in which there can be no dividing lines, then the question is not only "How can I forgive them?" but also "How can they forgive me?" Standing in such a vulnerable space is far more difficult than maneuvering for political advantage. It means that we have to publicly acknowledge that we are no different from those with whom we disagree.

We are far more comfortable in equating reconciliation with judgment between those who are "right" and those who are "wrong." We want to settle that distinction before we forgive. We want to be proven right so that the process of forgiveness can be a one-way street. A great deal of the ongoing debate over the Windsor Report is a process of seeking the high ground rather than seeking the common ground that forgiveness demands.

The process of reconciliation that Jesus embodies demands a deeper form of emotional response because it takes us out of the polarity of being right or wrong. It places us all in the position of needing forgiveness. In fact, it forces us to stop thinking in the polarities we invent (liberal or conservative/African or Western). There are no polarities in the circle of forgiveness. Consequently, success is not measured by who is justified, but by who is willing to live justly with the other. The forgiveness process is not intended to validate righteousness but to protect against righteousness. It is not designed to teach others about the errors of their ways, but to help us learn about errors of our own.

The Context of Discernment

The lessons to be learned from the Windsor Report began when a group of people were afraid that their community would fall apart. The people were the first disciples and the community was the early church. Facing the crisis of the absence of Jesus, they worried about how they would continue to understand what to do in a hostile world. Jesus gave them the answer by giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Counselor who would continue to teach them all they needed to know. In so doing, he set in motion a process that continues to this day.

The lessons to be learned from the Windsor Report are in the process of discernment. While each of us may pretend that we know all that we need to know about the will of God on any given issue, the presence of the Holy Spirit overturns that arrogance. Our certainty is made hollow by the fact that Jesus felt it necessary to give us the Spirit in the first place. The Spirit was a communal gift. This third person of the Trinity was not given to just one of us, or even to one special group of us, but to all of us.

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.

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.

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Fall 2005
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