The Windsor Report: The Newbie speaks!

Yes, I’ve finally managed to read all the Windsor Report (except for most of the appendices). And I have very mixed feelings.

My biggest problem remains its opposition to bishops intervening on behalf of orthodox parishes under apostate bishops. I’ll probably deal with that separately later. But the report is so weak in providing a place for besieged orthodox that my gut response to the following . . .

In some instances, this breach of trust has been felt so keenly that a parish or diocese has found itself unwilling to accept the ministry of a bishop associated with such contrary action, and has invited bishops from elsewhere in the province or beyond to provide pastoral and sacramental oversight. In some cases, there are primates and bishops who have acceded to these requests with or without reference to the proper authorities of the diocese concerned. We want to make quite clear that we fully understand the principled concerns that have led to those actions . . .

. . . was to say, “No, you don’t.”

Again, I’ll probably say more about that.

A number of orthodox are pleased that the report affirms the authority of scripture. But I’ve seen no one yet publicly take note of the very next paragraph (para. 54), which has loopholes big enough to drive a cathedral through. The sentence that especially rings alarm bells for me is:

Thus the phrase “the authority of scripture”, if it is to be based on what scripture itself says, must be regarded as a shorthand, and a potentially misleading one at that, for the longer and more complex notion of “the authority of the triune God, exercised through scripture”.

That reminds me of the woman whom I heard say from a Presbyterian pulpit, “We don’t believe the Bible; we believe the Christ behind the Bible.” Such statements are an open invitation to pick and chose what parts of scripture to keep or toss depending on subjective opinions on which ones have God behind them or not. Such “authority of scripture” in reality puts man, not God, in authority over scripture.

I may sound paranoid, but I’ve seen all this before. Those who are taking comfort from the report’s supposed affirmation of scripture are in for a big disappointment I’m afraid.

Another problem: the report advocates lots and lots of dialogue, but has no time tables. I’m a newbie Anglican, but I’ve already caught on that ++Griswold and such love to wear down their opposition with endless “dialogue.” The Robinson consecration is a classic example of “We’ll do what we want, then we’ll try to talk with you about it until you give up.” The report encourages more of the same.

A more fundamental problem occurs earlier in paragraph 45. And maybe this cranky fundie is making too much of Anglican niceties. But there it is assumed that Anglicans have “shared status as children of God in Christ.”

No they don’t.

There are wolves in sheep’s clothing in the Anglican Communion – a lot of them. And a number of them wear pointy hats, too. A fundamental error of the report -- perhaps the most fundamental error – is the report glosses over that and acts as if we’re all just God’s children here having tea. Instead, as Jesus would say, there are a lot of children of the devil among us. And we let a lot of them become bishops. That’s really why we’re having these problems in the first place.

I know -- now that I’m Anglican, I should learn to be nice and drink tea and sherry (I WON’T learn to smoke.) instead of saying such things. But the church must protect itself from wolves, from heretics and apostates who deceive and usurp authority. Two whole letters of the Bible (2 John and Jude) and more emphasize the needfulness of setting aside false teachers. In its eagerness to keep all of us “children of God” in communion, the report almost completely misses that necessity.

Note that I say “almost.” That leads to the main strengths of the Windsor Report. It does lay down requirements for those who have pushed actively gay bishops and same-sex blessings if they are to remain in communion. It does so rather weakly in a number of ways, but it does so nonetheless.

And it proposes a covenant to be required of the Anglican Communion. Now the problem with that is that wolves like to define nice religious words however they please. But it’s still a good proposal in the right direction.

Especially if the Primates ditch the weak and errant sections and strengthen the requirements for communion (And there are already some noises that some Primates will attempt just that.), the Windsor Report has tools the Primates can use to somewhat clean up this mess.

We shall see. Don’t stop praying. The Anglican Communion needs it.