Michael Ramsey Concerning Unity

The Church Times, an English church news paper, has published "The Anglican Covenant: a Church Times guide." It provides a collection of essays for and against the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant. It ends with an annotated Covenant which is quite helpful.

This is a nice compliment to the Study Guide to the Anglican Covenant published last month by the Anglican Communion office.

The whole thing puts me in mind of something from Michael Ramsey who was a widely respected theologian and the fondly remembered Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961-1974:

A word about unity. In the seventeenth chapter of St. John it is recorded that Christ prayed for the unity of his disciples. If you are trying to be a Christian, I am sure you are concerned about that. But notice also that, in the same prayer, Christ prayed for his disciples that they become holy, sanctified; and he also prayed that they might learn truth – “sanctify them in the truth.”

Unity, truth, holiness: the three are inseparable. Because of its connection with truth, Christian unity cannot be based on theological vagueness or indifference. And as for holiness, the implication that we are drawn into that togetherness with one another which Christ desires if we are also being drawn into that togetherness with him which is our call to be saints.

Re-union, then, goes with the recovery of truth, and with the reconcecration of lives. Each is urgent in its demands upon us. Neither of these however can be faster than the others; and there is a divine urgency and a divine patience.
(Introducing the Christian Faith, p. 76)

The re-union Ramsey referes to is ecumenism across Chritian traditions, but it seems relevant to nurturing "union" within the Anglican Communion over against the scandal of disunion or schism.

A basic challenge to the unity and faithfulness of any Christian body is how to live together in light of both the divine urgency and the divine patience.

I also wonder if we are able to make the distinction between the classic comprehensiveness of the Anglcian tradition and the "theological vagueness or indifference" against which Ramsey warns.

ONE, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church

"We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" - Nicene Creed

Father, we pray your holy Catholic Church.
That we all might be one.
Book of Common Prayer, p. 387

Given the evident conflict and division, claiming to believe the Church is "one" might be one of the bigger stumbling blocks in the creed.

In his book, The Creed, Luke Timothy Johnson makes the point that the Church's vocation to be "holy" is sometimes in tension with its vocation to be "one" and "catholic". While the tension can be difficult and uncomfortable, in truth they are not separable.

Being a Christian is a matter of believing, becoming, and belonging. It’s the belonging part that modern Christians tend to miss, having drunk deeply from the well of individualism. Belonging to the Church is not a merely spiritual affection. It must be embodied. To be a Christian is not merely to adopt a set of beliefs or behaviors on our own. It is not about abstractions like faith or love or justice or peace or whatever. It is about embodying such things as a community.

Jesus' prayer that his followers be one is thus fundamental to what we are supposed to be as the new community living in his Spirit under the new covenant inaugurated in his death and resurrection. The Church is to be a sign and foretaste of the kingdom of God in which the wound of the Original Schism of sin and brokenness is fully healed. Schism – between humans and God, and humans and humans - is the original sin colorfully depicted as unfolding in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It is that Schism that Jesus comes to heal. Or as Ephesians has it, it is the barriers and enmity of that schism that he breaks down.

I suggest a fundamental mission of the church is reflected in one of the prayers in the Marriage Rite in the Book of Common Prayer: "Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.” (BCP p. 429) Splitting the church is a counter-sign that undermines whatever aspect of the gospel it hopes to preserve/advance. The fact that the Church is already broken and in a state of schism does not justify further division, i.e., further false witness.

Schism can be provoked (by the zealous pursuit of holiness - or justice, or whatever reformation/revision someone thinks necessary) as well as pursued (by those who are convinced they - and God - are better served by separating from those with whom they disagree). We have seen plenty of both in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion over the last decade. Both are a participation in the Original Schism of sin.

Being bound to one another, actually learning to love – not the insipid sentimentalism that often goes by that name, but the love typified by the self-emptying way of the cross - is part of our witness to the world. It is hard - the Church is a school of love that is often a school of hard knocks – but it is the more excellent way. This includes speaking truth, offering and receiving correction, etc. It also includes trusting that the Church is the body of Christ and that its destiny, along with ours as members of it, is in God's hands. Part of what it means for the Church to be the light of the world is to actually be the community envisioned in Romans 12, Philippians 2, Ephesians 4, etc.

Thus, while it is encouraging that they have reiterated their commitment to the Anglican Communion, it is still disappointing that some primates are absenting themselves from this week's meeting in Dublin. But, it is also disappopinting that many in the Episcopal Church are so convinced that they know the mind of the Spirit that they are willing to pursue actions that most of the rest of the Anglican Communion has yet to be persuaded are faithful.

An Anglican Covenant makes sense, not because it will settle any given issue once and for all (it won't) but because it just might enable the Anglican Communion to live more fully into the vocation to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

Here is something from Charles Gore reflecting on what some early church theologians had to say about schism.

I hope to write reflections on the Church's vocation to be holy, catholic, and apostolic in the future.