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Freedom and Covenant: The Miltonian Analogy Transfigured
Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Radner, Ephraim
So now we are at a place where Miltonian character, allied perhaps to this American distinction but very different in its impulse, has appeared within ECUSA with astonishing vigor. We use the term "provincial autonomy" to describe the ecclesial virtue we seek to protect, but in a very particular way these days. The Miltonian similitude connotes the nobility of the commitment; Milton's mythic status rightly underlines the values of freedom and justice and the intrinsicgood of commitments to these things. ECUSA, in engaging in a Miltonian task-whether specified in terms of oppressed persons or in systems of ecclesial government-has not taken hold of something base. But the new Miltonianism of ECUSA policies also points to a profound inner tension (contradiction?) that is pulling the church away from her innate "apostolic" ordering and constraints. The Miltonian element strangely distorts the residual, essential prelatism of ECUSA as it asserts itself in conflict (see the conflict in Connecticut between the bishop and some priests). Unless the Miltonian streak of ECUSA is submitted to organic constraint, prelatical aggression becomes personalized self-assertion, exceeding all bounds of social control. If the heart of ECUSA is exploding, it is because we do not have an ecclesial mechanism for resolving this tension theologically.
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The Windsor Covenant as a Way Forward
I suggest that the Windsor Report, in its proposal for a Covenant, offers an arena in which the American Church can be true to her dual character. After all, the Covenant attempts to hold together, by constitutional agreement and representative functions, the autonomous character of particular Anglican churches (a "voluntary association of churches"-para. 119) within each church's "calling" to communion (which is "inviolable"-Appendix Two, Art. 6, para. 3). As a whole, the Covenant is designed to act as the "communion's visible foundation," even while it "protects [the] distinctive identity and mission" of her churches (para. 119).
The Covenant, in its particulars, is committed to an episcopal focus, through which Communion life will be ordered. The Windsor Report as a whole places great emphasis on the bishop s character as teacher of Scripture, and as instrument of collegial unity (para. 58, 63-66); and the Covenant spells out this prelatical ministry with clear force, placing great responsibility for maintaining communion upon the choices of individual bishops (Appendix Two, Art. 13).
But the Covenant also seeks to place these responsibilities within a context of "adjustable" consultation and/or mediation and resolution. The doctrinal substance of the Covenant's agreed definitions is relatively thin, and great weight is placed upon the constraints of "communion concerns" that are not defined in advance. Thus, individualsbishops accountable to their churches and to one another-are given enormous responsibilities to listen, discern, and choose rightly within a process of common decision-making around the world. The onus of the constraining mechanism remains one of freedom assumed and limited collegially within the constitutional systems of local churches and provinces.
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