Author Archive
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
How is a space in time in which conflict can be overcome and unity preserved to be, if not created, at least marked out? How is this task to be accomplished when the collegiality of bishops has unraveled to an alarming degree, and there is no centralized political and/or juridical order to fill the gap left by its decline? Or, to put the question in a more positive manner, how is the koinonia of the various Provinces of the Anglican Communion to be preserved and promoted at the same time the autonomy of each province is recognized, even celebrated?
The proposal now before provinces of the Communion is by means of a covenant that calls for placing autonomy within the encompassing and limiting context of communion. I have chosen to term this proposal “The Grand Design” for the simple reason that it is an ambitious and inventive proposal to preserve communion and catholic identity within a broad expanse of both space and time.
read more...
February 10 2009 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
I have argued that TAC and TEC stand at a cross roads in their respective histories. We are faced with a classical question that St. Luke states simply and clearly. “What then shall we do?” Are we to covenant or are we not to covenant? That is the question. That the question is a live one became obvious in the responses given to TSAD by the Bishops of our Communion when last they assembled at Lambeth. Those responses are now in the public domain, and I urge their careful study. They provide an excellent introduction to the push and pull that now defines the torn fabric of our Communion. They serve well to take us through the dilemmas we face, and they provide an excellent format we can use to assess the value of the covenant proposal.
The first question, one that like the others I will list in fact expresses an objection, is this: why do we need a covenant at all? The answer lies first of all in the history of our Communion. Over the past 150 years God has blessed the missionary efforts of Anglicans in various parts of the world. Anglicans now form the third largest body of Christians on the globe. Of greater importance is the fact that Anglican churches in Africa and Asia have emerged as Spirit-filled Christian communities that are in no small measure responsible for the explosive growth of Christian belief and practice in those areas of the world. The covenant thus does more than address the strains brought about by TEC. It seeks to address how Anglicans from around the world, though no longer bound by ties to England and North America, can honor and share the gifts they have received and maintain their unity in the face, not only of often conflicting national interests but also of diverging forms of belief and practice.
read more...
February 10 2009 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
I am pleased that my article “The Subversion of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church” has generated the discussion it has. A number of the responses simply display the toxic atmosphere that sadly prevents the blogs from realizing their potential for furthering genuine debate. There have, however, been a number that are serious in their intent and deserve a measured response.
read more...
November 30 2008 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Recent actions of The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the matter of Gene Robinson have sent shock waves throughout that church and indeed throughout the Anglican Communion. These actions present both TEC and the Communion unprecedented challenges to their forms of order and governance. Indeed, an underlying assumption of this essay is that neither TEC nor the Anglican Communion as a whole at present has instruments and forms of governance capable of coping with a crisis of this magnitude. As a result, solutions (if they can be called that) are being improvised in great haste and often with little thought.
read more...
November 21 2008 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Monday, July 21st, 2008
Shortly before the opening of the Lambeth Conference (now in progress) the Rt. Rev. Clayton Matthews of the office of TEC’s Presiding Bishops circulated a memo to all TEC bishops planning to attend. The memo is entitled “Lambeth Talking Points” and is intended to guide and shape the comments of TEC’s bishops in their discussions with other bishops from other parts of the Anglican Communion. The memo is revealing for several reasons. (1) It is an obvious attempt to give uniform shape and content to the contribution TEC’s bishops have to make; (2) it reveals what TEC’s leadership intends the outcome of the conference to be; and (3) displays what the theology is that lies behind the uniform position TEC’s leadership hopes to establish as that of the Communion as a whole.
read more...
July 21 2008 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Three events in the recent past have posed a serious question. Does the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC) know what she is doing? The possible answers to this question have raised even greater concern than the question itself. For, I have concluded, if, on the one hand, she does not know what she is doing then TEC is without effective leadership at perhaps the most crucial time in its history. If, on the other hand, she does know what she is doing, she is leading TEC in directions for which she has no warrant.
read more...
May 01 2008 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
A second iteration of a draft covenant for the Anglican Communion (the St. Andrew’s Draft) is now circulating; and it is likely that some version thereof will be presented to the Bishops of the Communion when they meet in Canterbury this summer. At some point after this gathering, a covenant proposal will be circulated among the provinces of the Communion for ratification. There is no doubt that most (though perhaps not all) of the member provinces of the Communion will ratify a covenant within the next few years. The question is really not so much ratification of the Covenant, but (1) the sort of covenant that will be ratified; (2) the way in which the provinces of the Communion comport themselves during the period leading up to ratification; and (3) how the Communion might best respond to a situation in which a province rejects the covenant but there are dioceses and parishes within that province that do not.
read more...
May 01 2008 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendents be.” And He believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
It is hard to miss the fact that all the readings for this Sunday are about having faith. Abraham has faith in God and in his promises, and it is reckoned to him as righteousness. So reads Genesis. By faith Abraham leaves home to receive an inheritance and from one “as good as dead were born descendents as many as the stars of heaven, and as the innumerable grains of sand by the sea shore.” So reads the Epistle to the Hebrews. Then in the reading from St. Luke’s Gospel Jesus reminds his disciples of God’s promise to give them the Kingdom. By faith they are to invest their treasure in that promise, even to the point of selling their possessions.
read more...
August 15 2007 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Monday, August 6th, 2007
Dear Stephen,
Thank you for your gracious reply to my response to your open letter calling for a “full and final separation” between those whom you term a “faithful remnant” and The Episcopal Church (TEC). Knowing you as I do I was certain there would be a reply, but I nonetheless hoped against hope that none would be forthcoming. I say this not because I am not open to theological exchange, but because the medium (blogs) now used for such exchanges encourages hasty and ill tempered response and counter response. I have no desire to be involved in such a back and forth and I presume you do not either.
read more...
August 06 2007 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
My dear Brother Stephen,
I had finished a draft of this letter before the recent meeting at which Bishop Duncan expressed his view that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference are “lost” in so far as they can serve as instruments of communion. He has expressed to me in private views similar to these on several occasions; but now that they have been expressed in such a public manner I feel a response to your open letter is even more urgent than when I first sat down to write. In your Open Letter to Network Bishops and Common Cause Partners you advise these Bishops that the time has come for a “full and final separation between those in The Episcopal Church (TEC) who hold a false gospel and those who hold fast the truth revealed in Holy Scripture and the evangelical and catholic faith of the Church.” You write as a baptized and confirmed member of the TEC of 40 years standing and as a priest of some 35 years standing. You write also as one who for the past seven years has viewed TEC with the eyes of the church in Africa.
read more...
August 02 2007 | Articles
« Prev - Next »