item four

From the Chicago – Lambeth Quadrilateral:

“The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.”

That is the language by which we can say the Anglican world has required us to have bishops, and specifically: bishops. There are several things to say about it.

First it does not say the ‘imperial episcopate.” That is, seats in the House of Lords are not required. Being then Archbishop of something comes under the heading of “locally adapted.”

Second, let’s look at “locally adapted.” For some reason, I wont speculate here, some bishops seem to miss those words. So, for instance, we have N. T. Wright who has spent a lot of time in the U.S. asking then Presiding Bishop Griswald why he did not veto the election of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. The ‘local adaptation’ in the U.S. does not empower the presiding bishop with a veto.

Third we now have the latest attempt of Canterbury and its sycophants to find something the bullies of central Africa (the non-global South) will accept as a group of OK North American Episcopalians. Complicit in this latest fraud: the usual suspects – the Camp Allen wimps. One wonders if there is anything they wont do to prove Neville Chamberlain a prophet.

In any event, this latest search for appeasement seems to wrest in part on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent message. This extraordinarily obscure (even for Dr. Williams) text seems to say that the diocese not the province is the basic unit to which he extends some sort of Anglican legitimacy.

To my amazement, the empire builders in the non-global South embraced that idea. Of course, it may not have occurred to them that it applies to Nigeria as much as it does to say, Canada. A rebel bishop anywhere may say that all that is required is fellowship with Canterbury. But, of course at the moment we are talking about an attack on the USA and Canada, not Africa.

In any event, one of the claims, correct as far as it goes, is that the office of presiding bishop does not possess metropolitan or arch-episcopal authority. True enough, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Shori is not invested with authority over the church in the way, for instance, Archbishop Akinola is invested over Nigeria.

The incorrect implication is that there is no ‘metropolitan authority’ within the US. In fact, we simply have locally adapted that authority and invested in in General Convention in most cases and in standing committees and the house of bishops in others.

So for instance, someone could have vetoed the election of Bp. Robinson. The “vetoes” could have arisen from either the house of deputies or the “bishops with jurisdiction.” (That is a rather quaint term for ‘Ordinary.”) It is in their votes that the metropolitan authority is vested.

So, the current and latest desperate attempt to commit appeasement will fail precisely because it again ignores our local adaptation. We don’t invest all authority in metropolitan bishops. That is precisely why TEC does not have an “archbishop” title. And that is precisely what the English obsessed with those seats in Lords and the imperial archbishops of the non-global South miss.

Of course, witness the amazing, inappropriate and corrupt scene at the last general convention when B033 was stuffed up our throats, sometimes our presiding bishops do not ‘get it.’ It is my fond hope that this up coming general convention will fix that error.