John Fenwick on When Church Unity Efforts Fail

(I ask readers’ forbearance that both John Fenwick’s paper and my response come from an orthodox Anglican perspective.)

A number of papers from the Anglican Patrimony Conference held last week in Oxford have been posted.  The one most intriguing to me is by John Fenwick, Primus of the Free Church of England and a key player in attempting to coordinate orthodox Anglican efforts in the U. K.

He reveals some very interesting history from the inside of the Canterbury-Rome unity push in the 70’s:

It was in the heady days of ARCIC 1. The Final Report had been sent around the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Most of the responses were positive. It was expected to be officially endorsed at the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. The Vatican response was expected imminently. There was a feeling that something momentous was about to happen.

Prior to my appointment to Lambeth I had been lecturer in Christian worship at Trinity College, Bristol. Shortly after my arrival in the Ecumenical Affairs office, Christopher asked me to do some preliminary thinking about a liturgical project. (As Christopher put it, there’s no point in having a dog and barking yourself.) The project was what liturgical form the restoration of communion between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church might take. That was a heady request for a junior staff member! The most recent unity scheme around was the Covenant for Unity based on the Ten Propositions. That had proposed a day of liturgical events including the consecration of bishops. I remember working with that model and envisaging a service where the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury might jointly consecrate the first of a new generation of bishops whose Orders would be recognised by both Churches.

We were that close! Or at least so it seemed to some of those closely involved.

In retrospect that moment was a high water mark. The tide has been going out ever since.

The Vatican’s response not only did not come before the next Lambeth Conference as hoped; it did not come until 1991.  And not only the timing, but also its content was disappointing.  It made it all the more clear that the hoped-for unity between the Church of England and Rome was not going to happen.

Even more disillusioning has been the Church of England’s liberal drift since then.  That leads Bishop Fenwick to make an interesting hypothesis:

I want to suggest that the Vatican’s 1991 response fits a pattern that has characterised ecumenical endeavour in the past half century – namely that unity initiatives have been halted by the refusal of what one might call the more conservative partner to act, and that as a result, the other partner has felt itself free to move further away from the historic Christian consensus.

I do not claim that what I am going to say has been rigorously historically tested, nor am I able to do so here, but I think the possibility of a pattern is worth considering.

And that pattern is simply that there seem to have been several occasions when the more conservative partner in a dialogue, by failing to take bold action, allowed the less conservative partner to move further away from traditional faith and practice.

And he gives other examples of this occurring, including failed efforts between Old Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

This pattern indeed merits consideration.  When jurisdictions are in the midst of unity efforts, their focus is often on how would merger/intercommunion affect us.  And that is certainly important.  But how it would affect the other party and the whole church, the Body of Christ, should not be overlooked.  And Fenwick does not let us ignore that, often for the disappointed party, a “move further away from traditional faith and practice” occurs after unity efforts fail.

Of course, in such cases we do not know what would have happened if unity efforts succeed.  For example, in the case of the Church of England and Roman Catholics, would Rome had been importing more liberalism to its harm? Would more Protestant-minded Anglicans feel pushed out of the Church of England?  I personally suspect the failure of ARCIC did more harm that what might have happened if it succeeded, and Fenwick seems to think that as well.  But we do not know.  And, yes, jurisdictions have to consider the stresses and pressures greater organizational unity may cause.  I sometimes wonder if the Anglican Church in North America, in its well meaning haste to bring Anglicans together, has not given such issues enough consideration.  If not done right, organizational unity can beget more disunity.

Nonetheless, Bishop Fenwick well reminds us that the good of the other party should be considered.  (And the bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the U. S. have done just that in joining and remaining in ACNA.)  We should avoid causing sister churches to stumble by turning them away without very good reason.

Care should also be taken in missionary efforts where there are existing Anglican jurisdictions.  Accordingly, Fenwick, in his conclusion, let it be known he still has mixed feelings about the consecration of orthodox bishops in the U. K. outside of existing jurisdictions.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Fenwick’s paper (I agree, at least for the most part.), it contains most interesting insight not often presented.  Read it all.

On Millennial Ignorance of Totalitarianism

I will not go over the details of a recent poll revealing ignorance about the Holocaust among Millennials.  By now most of my above average readers are well aware of the poll, and it is readily available.

I will point out that this ignorance is surely one reason for the revival of totalitarianism amongst Millennials.  That those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it is a partial truth and something of a cliché, but there is truth to it.  Knowledge of past evil can make current evil less likely. When we are tempted to do evil, it helps to have a learned reminder not to be like past evildoers.

To be more specific, when a young man is tempted to put on an arm band and raise his arm against Constitutional rights and to viciously attack and slander opponents and attempt to disarm and silence them, it helps for his education to whisper in his ear, “Hey bud, that would be acting a bit too much like a Nazi, don’tcha think?”  When youth are instead ignorant of the basics of historic totalitarianism, we are more likely to get . . .  well, to get David Hogg.

And given the bias towards the Left in public and secondary education, ignorance of Communism and its atrocities must surely be even greater, likely much greater.  So the little Communists running amuck are blissfully unaware that they are acting a bit too much like the 20^th Century Communists who murdered tens upon tens of millions.  I see how some of the youth act and am reminded of the Cultural Revolution.  Meanwhile most of them have no idea what the Cultural Revolution was, thanks to their failed education. . . .  Or maybe their education was intended to create Leftists with little memory of Leftist atrocities and little respect for democratic values.

So, yes, I have little doubt that ignorance of 20^th Century totalitarianism is assisting a revival of totalitarianism in the 21^st. Poor education and ignorance has consequences.

“Never Again” or Here We Go Again?

First, my apologies that this post will be somewhat stream of consciousness.  But something has been on my mind, and it’s certainly important enough that I should not be silent about it.  Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday has goaded me to say something even if my thoughts are not that well organized yet.

Yesterday is a reminder of how deadly totalitarianism is.  The totalitarian mindset cares not a wit for the freedom and lives of political opponents and of others who are hated for other reasons, such as class, religion, and ethnicity.  Totalitarianism is why the 20^th Century was such a deadly one.  And do not forgot that the Communist brand of totalitarianism killed tens of millions more than Hitler’s did.  Of course, thankfully, Hitler’s time was shorter.

Another lesson of the 20^th Century is that often it is hard to see just how dangerous times are when you are in the middle of them.  As a child, I wondered why all the Jews did not flee what was to come.  Well, although they knew times were not good, most did not know the horrors to come although there was much warning.  Us humans are prone to denial of coming horrors until it is too late.

I understand that denial more now.  I see the totalitarian mindset on the march today in the conduct of the Left and of the Deep State, of their contempt for freedom of speech, for freedom of religion, and of democracy in general. I also see it in the vilification of others under the guise of “White Privilege” and now and soon “Christian Privilege.” I do not know what scares me more, the little totalitarians taking over college campuses or the conduct of Mueller and Company in attempting to overturn a presidential election.  Their method of practically inventing the crimes of political opponents reminds me of the old Soviet Union and of today’s Russian under Putin.  Instead of investigating a crime and finding the man behind it, they investigate the man and search for or invent a supposed crime to bring him down.  The raid of Trump’s lawyer’s offices has made that modus operandi that much more clear.

And yet part of me thinks this too will pass.  But I don’t know whether that part is realistic or in denial.

Under totalitarianism, the people are not allowed to choose their leaders (except for the correct “The People,” of course).  And it seems electing Trump was not permissible and must be overturned.  I’ve said it before and will say it again, the Left and others with a totalitarian mindset only respect democracy when they win.  And very early on, my alter ego smelled an attempted coup against Trump, and that attempted coup continues.

I know I may seem overwrought.  I know that totalitarianism in the U. S. may seem a conspiratorial fever dream.  But how many saw the coming ravages of Nazism and Communism before it was too late?  For that matter, how many ten or twenty years ago foresaw how mad the college campuses have become?  And with the attacks on free speech and on Constitutional and democratic values in general, I see warning signs too similar to warning signs of totalitarianism in the past.  More and more, I feel like I am living in a pre-totalitarian time and place.  I certainly understand more what so many Europeans experienced in the 20^th Century.

Yes, I told you this would be somewhat stream of consciousness.  But because it is so important that “Never again” triumphs over “Here we go again,” I may try to do my part and address the revival of totalitarian and of the totalitarian mindset from time to time as unpleasant as the subject may be.  For once, let us keep history from repeating itself.