mark harris on provisionality

Mark Harris on Provisionality

Mark Harris, a priest of our church and the blogger at Preludium,

continues to write fine essays on the state of the Episcopal Church

and the Anglican Communion. This weekend, he exceeded even my high

expectations with his essay, "The Limits of Provisionality." As I said

in the comments on his post, I found it one of the saddest and most

hopeful essays I've read in the last few years.

He begins:

One of the marks of Anglicanism is the sense that we Anglicans hold

those behaviors, actions, ceremonials, theologies, statements, etc,

that are peculiarly Anglican as provisional against the day when

God will inform us in deeper ways through Scripture, Reason and

Tradition of the Truth in Jesus Christ. That is, we do not assume

that we Anglicans are in any final way right. We do not claim to be

the true church, but rather an expression of the true church.

One way to think of ourselves is to suppose we are in a large room,

crowded with Anglicans with various recent experiences, and at the

same time some sense of family. We find ourselves grounded in

different perspectives on theology, used to different ceremonial,

have differing sensibilities about social and moral concerns.

Everyone at this gathering talks of what they know of the presence

of the Lord in their lives, the missionary sense that they derive

from such presence, and the lives they lead in the light of Christ.

They eat and drink together a lot. Some will accuse us of being a

party in progress.

He speaks poetically and passionately of the things that are best in

our Big Fat Anglican Family.

He then speaks of the unrest that has been introduced into the

Anglican Communion, at least since the consecration of Gene Robinson,

or maybe dating back to the ordination of women:

We might expect that when some in the crowd become more and more

uncomfortable with being provisional and begin to assert that their

understandings are of the catholic faith and those of others in the

crowd were not, the limits of provisionality would get tested. The

more the push for a particular position as that of the "faith once

delivered of the Saints," the more the community would begin to be

nervous about their own provisionality. What had seemed a gracious

effort to be a community of mutuality and loving kindness now would

look like a lack of faith. Others than might begin to be more

stringent as well, calling for obedience to the call that they had

experienced and with which they were engaged.

He then comes to a very sad conclusion. He concludes that the generous

provisionality that has characterized the Anglican Communion has died:

What are the limits to provisionality? Well, after all the

conversation in the big room, with all the Anglicans from around

the world and in our own back yards talking and learning from one

another, when those who clamor for the definitive community that is

the True Church wreck the provisional life, there is only this to

do:

Turn off the lights and take out the trash.

Provisionality does not include being held hostage to some

covenanted code, or someone's sense that they are the true

protectors of the faith once delivered, or some high toned loyalty

oath to the unvarnished scriptures. When the conversation is

dominated by those who rant and who are no longer interested in

gathering in a room big enough for common action among truly

diverse peoples, it may be time to say, "The party's over. Come

back tomorrow."

I think the party is over: Time to turn off the lights and take out

the trash.

Then he continues with the hopeful part:

Several years ago I suggested that the Anglican Communion is an

organic thing: it has a life and it came into self-conscious

existence at some point and it will someday die. What we can hope

for is that when the provisional community gathers again they will

remember with thanksgiving the work that the Anglican Communion has

done. I believe that.

I strongly believe that the Anglican Communion, as a fellowship of

churches committed to being an expression of the Church, but not

The Church, provisional and diverse in its understandings and

experience of the faith and willing to work together as churches,

will continue. I believe the Episcopal Church will be a part of

that fellowship.

I also believe that when this community gathers, perhaps at

Lambeth, but surely in a wide variety of gatherings great and small

in which bread is broken and stories told, God's will for us all

will be advanced and we will be made new for new days.

Others will go and make their own way.

But for this to happen it is time to declare that this party is

over. This party has become spiritually disabling.

The only way to believe in the resurrection is to practice

resurrection. [...] When this gathering is over there is another

ready to begin.

The Anglican sense of provisionality will find new form.

The Episcopal Church will live into that provisionality.

The gathering will gather again.

I suspect Mark Harris is right. We Episcopalians cleave to the

incarnation and the resurrection. This experiment in tolerance (or

"provisionality" in Mark's terms) cannot be over. Perhaps we need to

let this current structure die, so that we can see what kind of

resurrection we will experience after the schismatics do their worst

and leave.

Do go over to Preludium and read Mark Harris's full essay.

posted by Lisa Fox at 11/19/2007 08:25:00 PM

3 Comments:

Anonymous seamus said...

Dean Allan of Grace cathedral in San Francisco says that it is

the Episcopal's great joy that one day all will be converted to

its generosity, and they will all be Anglicans,,, it is also

its great misfortune that they wont know it when it happens.

11/20/2007 4:23 AM

Blogger Grandm�re Mimi said...

And they all said "Amen!" Well, not all, really. Only in my

dreams, more's the pity.

It is a beautiful essay.

11/23/2007 1:24 PM

Blogger Mike Greiner said...

Yes, death and resurrection. The death of the Anglican church

party in the West, and the birth of true Anglican life in

Africa and Asia.

We thank God for the Africans and Asians. Perhaps their efforts

to revive the dying Episcopal church in America will begin a

new Spring Time, and start the party again.

12/04/2007 6:57 PM

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