Local Options: True Subsidiarity in the Body

by William Carroll

The Windsor Report "is not a judgment. It is part of a process. It is part of a pilgrimage towards healing and reconciliation. The proposals (made) attempt to look forward rather than merely to recount how difficulties have arisen. A large majority of the submissions received by the Commission have supported the continuance of the Anglican Communion as an instrument of God's grace for the world." -- from the foreword, Archbishop Robin Eames, Primte of Ireland and Chairman, the Lambeth Commission

In "The Windsor Report and the American Evasion of Communion," Ephraim Radner appeals to one of the most problematic aspects of the Windsor Report (WR), namely its grossly defective conception of subsidiarity. It is true that "what touches all should be decided by all," is an ancient canonical principle. But it's a principle that holds no water anymore, not since the Reformation, if not the Great Schism.

I find it surprising that any evangelical could embrace this aspect of the report, which goes against basic principles of the Reformation, such as the supremacy of informed conscience and liberty in the Gospel.

True subsidiarity empowers local bodies to incarnate the Gospel in their local context. Much like modern organizational theory, it pushes power and authority as close to the action as possible. This enables the Church to become more flexible and mission-driven. It also brings us closer to Gospel models of authority. Who could imagine Jesus signing the kind of restrictive covenant envisioned in the WR?

A more adequate notion of subsidiarity, which characterizes historic Anglicanism at its best, emphasizes that decisions should always be made at the most local level possible. Since no question about sexuality is dogmatic in character, provinces should be at liberty to decide these questions for themselves. Indeed, even within provinces or dioceses, those in authority should not hinder those who want to develop or perform same-sex marriage rites, and licenses should never be denied to clergy who are involved in covenanted same-sex partnerships.

Women's ordination is instructive here. Suppose, for a moment, we buy the WR's rather questionable history of the controversies about women's ordination in Anglicanism. (Would the instruments of unity have really okayed it, if they thought the proponents were bound to obey them?)

If we really believed the ancient canonical principle to which the WR refers, we would still be obliged, even after the process of reception described in the WR, to refrain from ordaining women. (As indeed, some traditionalists argued at the time and have continued to do ever since.) If what touches all should be decided by all, then surely we give our Roman Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters a veto over our decisions in this area, for the sake of the unity and mission of the ecumenical Church.

But we don't and we shouldn't. We don't yield to Roman Catholic teaching on divorce or birth control. And neither should we yield an inch to the shameless venue shopping of the American Anglican Council, which appeals to bodies that have no canonical authority when it doesn't like the decisions of those that do, such as the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

It is true that, in some periods of Anglican history, the degree of local option that I envision was not practiced, except informally. But this is one of the sorry legacies of our imperial past and not the ideal. One of the best things about the Episcopal Church has been our experiment with democratic elements in our decision-making process, which have made us more transparent to the Spirit's work than we might otherwise be.

Here is the fundamental problem facing Anglicanism today: the Elizabethan settlement can't work without an Empire. I am repeatedly astonished by the willingness of the Global South to put so much authority in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of a province that is a former colonial power. It is up to all Anglicans, including those who currently have no voice in the polity of their province, to decide what forms of unity we want and need.

The criterion should be mission, not unity at any price. The kind of curialization that the WR envisions is a fearful, maintenance-driven response to what many find to be an unsettling development in the American and Canadian churches. We can discuss this. Perhaps we could have done more consultation. But we cannot give up our autonomy, which is a basic principle of Anglican polity that distinguishes us from Roman Catholicism.

I say this as someone who is fully committed to Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence (MRI). MRI ironically has far more to do with affirming the authority of local bishops in situations of mission partnership than many who are invoking it now let on. For example, it counsels against the ill-conceived attempts of foreign bishops to invade parishes of the Diocese of Los Angeles. It says nothing about the lawful process of our General Convention. Nor should it. Any form of interdependence that would require us to violate our conscience is unjust and contrary to the Gospel of Christ.

As Professor Marilyn McCord Adams and Bishop Paul Marshall have argued recently, the Windsor Report is a reactive and institutional effort to stifle what claims to be a prophetic development of doctrine under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

[COVENANT, Number 19, January 2005]

The Revd R William Carroll is Junior Fellow in Systematic Theology at the School of Theology of the University of the South. He is a doctoral candidate in Christian Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is canonically resident in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.